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Anti-Tobacco 




Abiel Abbot Livermore 
And Others 



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ANTI-TOBACCO. 

/ 

By ABIEL ABBOT LIVERMORE. 
WITH 

A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

By REV. RUSSELL LANT* CARPENTER. 
AND 

ON THE USE OF TOBACCO. 

By G. F. -"WITTER, M.D. 

it 




BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1883. 




Copyright, 1883, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



(Eambritige : 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Anti-Tobacco 7 

A Lecture on Tobacco 37 

Tobacco and its Effects 73 

Appendix ...... 115 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 

By ABIEL ABBOT LIVERMORE, 

Meadville, Penn» 
— ♦ — 

THE SUBSTANCE OF AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE 
MEADVILLE TEMPERANCE UNION, 

January 29, 1882. 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 



oj^o 



T T is a legal proverb that " Possession is nine points in 
-^ the law." Judging by this standard, he must be a 
daring innovator who would venture to attack the well- 
nigh universal habit of using tobacco, by chewing, smoking, 
or snuffing. We have only to pass through the streets of 
our cities and villages, and see the numerous shops devoted 
to the traffic, or witness the smokers of pipes, cigars, or 
cigarettes in public places, and on the routes of travel, — 
the uncleanliness of cars and steamers, — to be assured 
that if universality is a sufficient proof of the merit of 
any habit or practice, the use of the weed is established 
beyond the possibility of overthrow. 

But, on the other hand, in this age, — which tests every- 
thing, however settled in the usages or opinions of society, 
or supported by popular favor, and rejects whatever con- 
flicts with truth and the welfare of mankind, — we are 
encouraged to submit even this widespread custom to the 
criterion of science and common-sense, not to say of 
moral principle. 

One of the most marvellous chapters of human history 
is that which relates how tobacco has been introduced 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 



among the articles of trade and commerce, and has sub- 
sidized both savage and civilized nations and tribes to its 
indulgence, and is still extending its triumphs. 

.To attack it seems as idle as to assault Gibraltar with a 
flight of Indian arrows. But we remember that most of 
the gigantic evils that have afflicted humanity — such as 
human sacrifices, idolatry, torture of witnesses and crimi- 
nals, the persecution of witches, intemperance, polygamy, 
slavery and the slave-trade, or war — could, with equal or 
greater assurance, claim exemption from criticism or re- 
buke on the ground of their antiquity and their univer- 
sality. Yet all these abominations now lie more or less 
under the condemnation of the enlightened sentiment of 
Christendom, and their dark shadows are passing away 
before the rising light of a nobler and purer civilization. 



Derivation of the Word. 

The origin of the word tobacco is doubtful. Some 
trace it to a Carib term, tabacos, signifying a pipe; others 
to Tabacco, a province of Yucatan ; others to Tab a go s, an 
island in the Caribbean Sea, or to Tabasco, one in the 
Gulf of Florida. 

Customs of its Use. 

The plant, as grown in different countries and climates, 
has several species or varieties, though it possesses com- 
mon properties. In Asia it appears to have been used 
from a remote antiquity, if we may judge by the ancient 
sculptured pipes, similar to those still employed in China. 
In America its use is traced back to the mound-builders, 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 



whoever they were, and other prehistoric races, as is 
demonstrated by their remains and monuments. When 
Columbus, in 1492, discovered America, or the adjacent 
islands, he found the natives puffing tobacco-smoke from 
their mouths and nostrils, and inhaling snuff through 
hollow canes. The depravity of chewing appears to have 
been reserved to the refinement of a later age, and a 
people boasting of its superior intelligence and civiliza- 
tion. Probably the sailors of the great discoverer carried 
home the habit to Southern Europe. While Sir Walter 
Raleigh, at a later period, has the questionable honor of 
introducing it into England. 

Commerce in Tobacco. 

Thus getting a foothold in Europe, the spread and ex- 
tent of the growth and employment of tobacco, as a luxury 
and as an article of trade, have gone on with astonishing 
rapidity. King Tobacco rivals the other royal powers of 
cotton, corn, wheat, hemp, and sugar, as one of the lead- 
ing products of the earth, and one of the main staples of 
trade and commerce. 

Six hundred thousand acres in the United States are 
devoted to the cultivation of tobacco. The " Pall Mall 
Gazette," of June 16, 187 1, reports the increase of the con- 
sumption in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, from 
1841 to 1878, to be 25,642,469 pounds weight, or an in- 
crease of from thirteen and three fourths ounces to one 
pound and seven ounces to each person of the popula- 
tion. The " Dublin University Magazine " estimates the 
tobacco bill of Great Britain at ^14,000,000 sterling, or 
$70,000,000. 



IO ANTI-TOBACCO. 



In 1867 a German statistician estimated the production 
of tobacco to be in 

Kilogrammes. 

Asia 155,000,000 

Europe 141,000,000 

America 124,000,000 

Africa 12,000,000 

Australia 400,000 

M. Barral, who officially reported on the specimens ex- 
hibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1866, thus estimates the 
amount grown : — 

Kilogrammes. 

In America 75,000,000 

" Turkey 45,000,000 

" Cuba 32,000,000 

" Austria 29,000,000 

" France 22,802,000 

" Germany 18,000,000 

" Russia 14,000,000 

" Brazil 8,000,000 

" Roumania 2,000,000 

" Algeria 1,600,000 

" Italy 1,500,000 

" Belgium 1,500,000 

M. Barral adds : " The enormous figures, which have 
passed before the reader's eye, testify to the facility with 
which people fall into excessive expense, for the gratifica- 
tion of a pleasure which has for its principal aim to kill . 
time, and stupefy the mind." 

Since 1 84 1 the population of Great Britain has increased 
25 per cent, but the consumption of tobacco, 43 per cent. 
More than a quarter of a million of sovereigns are spent 
every week on this narcotic, and that principally by one 
sex. 



ANTI-TOBACCO. II 



In the chief tobacco-raising countries — England, Ger- 
many, Holland, the United States, and France — more 
money is devoted to this luxury than pays the bread bill. 

According to a calculation made by the American Con- 
sul at Havana, and embodied in a report to the Secretary 
of State, it is computed that in the island of Cuba alone 
1,460,000,000 of cigars, or ten a day for each person of 
the population, are annually consumed by the inhabitants 
and residents of that island. 

Chemical Properties. 

There are about forty species or varieties of tobacco, 
belonging to the genus Nicotiana, in the order Solanaccea. 
Chemically analyzed, tobacco contains no less than three 
distinct and active poisons, nicotine, nicotianine, and em- 
pyreumatic oil, besides certain minute portions of alkaloids 
and acids. 

1 . Nicotine, or nicotia, is a colorless, or nearly colorless, 
fluid, when extracted from tobacco, having an exceedingly 
acrid, burning taste, even when largely diluted, and very 
irritating to the nostrils. The " United States Dispensa- 
tory," the great authority with physicians and druggists of 
all schools of practice, says : " Nicotine, in its action on the 
animal system, is one of the most virulent poisons known. 
A drop of it, in the state of concentrated solution, was suf- 
ficient to destroy a dog, and small birds perished at the 
approach of a tube containing it. In man it is said to de- 
stroy life, in poisonous doses, in from two to five minutes." 
The " New American Cyclopedia" says : " Its vapor is so 
irritating that it is difficult to breathe in a room in which a 
single drop has been evaporated." Dr. Drysdale, Fellow 



12 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and Senior 
Physician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, says (" To- 
bacco, and the Diseases it produces," London, 1880) : 
" The species of tobacco are closely related to henbane 
(hyoscyamns) , to atropa belladonna, and to stramonium — 
poisonous plants used in medicine. Tobacco alone, of all 
the four, is scarcely ever employed medicinally at the 
present day, except, perhaps, occasionally, in "Combination 
with stramonium, in spasmodic asthma. Its use as an in- 
jection has been abandoned, as too dangerous to life. It is 
largely used by some farmers for destroying vermin infest- 
ing sheep, and commonly also by gardeners for killing the 
insects upon their plants. Indeed, tobacco is one of the 
most virulent of all vegetable poisons." He further says : 
" The constituent part of tobacco, which makes it at once 
so agreeable and so dangerous to health, is nicotine, C 10 
H 14 N 2 , a liquid alkaloid discovered, so recently as 1809, 
by a French chemist. So deadly a poison is nicotine, that 
one tenth of a grain of it will kill a middle-sized dog in 
three minutes ; and as the percentage of nicotine in dry 
tobacco varies, from two per cent in Havana to about seven 
per cent in Virginia tobaccoAit has been calculated that in 
a single cigar there is enough nicotine, if given pure, to kill 
two men ; and in about a quarter of an ounce of tobacco, 
there may be as much as two grains of this very dangerous 
poison. \ A smuggler, mentioned by Namias to the Aca- 
d£mie des Sciences, was dangerously poisoned by covering 
his naked skin with tobacco leaves, in order to escape 
paying duty. The great danger of chewing tobacco is 
thus at once evident. Taylor (" On Poisons," p. 749) men- 
tions that the volatile vapor of tobacco, given off in the 
process of manufacture, has been shown to have an injuri- 



ANTI- TOBA CCO. 1 3 



ous effect on tobacco operatives. The first results are 
headache, nausea, languor, loss of appetite, and sleepless- 
ness, followed by a general disturbance of the health. 
Melsens, the chemist, said that he had collected 30 
grammes of nicotine from 4.500 grammes of tobacco 
smoke, which he conveyed through water. 

2. Nicotianine, the second poisonous component of 
tobacco, is a fatty substance, having an aromatic and 
somewhat bitter taste, and is probably the principle which 
gives the article its strong odor. The " Dispensatory " 
says : " It produces sneezing when applied to the nostrils, 
and a grain of it, swallowed by Hermstadt, occasioned gid- 
diness and nausea." The "New American Cyclopedia" 
says : u When taken internally, it gives rise to giddiness, 
nausea, and an inclination to vomit." The "Scientific 
American " speaks of tobacco -camphor, or nicotianine, as 
" a substance about which not much is known, — a bitter 
extractive matter." 

3. Empyreamatic oil is the third substance which is 
produced during the burning of the tobacco in the pipe. 
This is one of the most active poisons known to chemis- 
try. Sir Benjamin Brodie (" London Lancet ") says : " The 
empyreumatic oil of tobacco is produced by distillation 
of that herb at a temperature above that of boiling water. 
One or two drops of this oil (according to the size of the 
animal), placed on the tongue, will kill a cat in the course 
of a few minutes ; A certain quantity of this oil must 
always be circulating in the blood of an habitual smoker, 
and we cannot suppose that the effects of it on the system 
can be merely negative." "A single drop," says the same 
authority, " injected into the rectum of a cat, occasioned 
death in about five minutes ; and double the quantity, 



14 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



administered in the same manner to a dog, was followed 
by the same result.' ' 

Dr. Drysdale reports ("Tobacco, and the Diseases it pro- 
duces/') that "The analyses made by Eulenberg and Vohl 
("Ann. d'Hygiene," April, 1873, from " Vierteljahrsch fur 
ger. Med.") seem to controvert the old theory that the inju- 
rious effects of tobacco-'smoking are due directly to the pres- 
ence of nicotine in the smoke. They attribute them rather 
to the alkaloids produced by its decomposition, and which 
have many similar physiological properties. The smoke 
from tobacco, in pipes and cigars, was passed first through 
a solution of potassic hydrate, and then through one of 
dilute sulphuric acid. The former solution was found to 
contain a mixture of carbonic, hydrocyanic, sulphuric, 
acetic, formic, metace tonic, butyric, valeric, and carbolic 
acids, creosote, and several hydrocarbons. The acid 
solution contained rosolic acid, ammonia, traces of ethy- 
lamine and many of the pyridine bases, to the last of 
which the injurious action is due. The bases found were 
pyridine, C 5 H 5 N, which is more abundant in pipe than 
in cigar smoke ; picoline, C 6 H 7 N ; lutidine, C 7 H 9 N ; col- 
lidine, C 8 H n N, which is more abundant in cigar than 
in pipe smoke ; parvoline, C 9 H 13 N ; coridine, C 10 H 15 N ; 
rubidine, C n H 17 N ; and a residue corresponding to viri- 
dine, C 12 H 19 N. As will be seen, the most volatile of 
the bases, as pyridine, were most abundant in pipe-smoke, 
while the less volatile, as collidine, were most abundant in 
cigar-smoke. 

" The physiological action of these bases was not tested 
separately, but only that of a mixture of those which 
volatilize under 320 F., and of those which volatilize 
between 320 F. and 48 2 ° F. Both of these sets of bases, 



ANTI- TOBA CCO. 1 5 



like nicotine, produced contraction of the pupil, difficult 
respiration, general convulsions, and death ; and, upon 
post mortem examination, the respiratory passages and 
lungs were found congested. They do not act as rapidly 
as nicotine. Those volatile at a low temperature were 
more active than those which were only volatile at a high 
temperature, which explains the fact that more tobacco 
can be smoked in the form of cigars than in a pipe. 

"The alkaloids are soluble in the mucus of the mouth 
and air-passages ; and thus smoke condensed and min- 
gled with water is easily taken into the blood. Hence, 
when cigars or pipes are smoked, even out-of-doors, a 
notable quantity of poison is taken into the system. But, 
when smoking takes place in a small room, the air taken 
into the lungs also adds its poison to the fluids of the air- 
passages ; and persons who remain in smoking-rooms, 
even if not themselves smoking, cannot escape a certain 
amount of poisoning. Women who wait in public bar- 
rooms and smoking-saloons, though not themselves smok- 
ing, cannot avoid the poisoning caused by inhaling smoke 
continually. Surely gallantry, if not common honesty, 
should suggest the practical inference from this fact." 

General Effects of the use of Tobacco. 

The results of the use of the weed, armed as all 
chemists agree with some of the most powerful and poi- 
sonous agents known to the vegetable world, have been 
set down in all medical literature in fearful array. But in 
vain has been the warning. The habit of using tobacco, 
in some form, becomes even stronger in its enslaving 
power than that of the indulgence in spirituous liquors, to 



1 6 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



which it is closely allied. . Thick-set, as the path of the 
victim is, with dangers on the right and on the left, he 
rushes on regardless of consequences, and gratifies the 
unnatural and purely artificial appetite, in spite of all 
the remonstrances of an outraged constitution, and the 
pangs of distress felt in every vital organ. He sophisti- 
cates his reason and common- sense with the deceitful 
pleas that the use of tobacco is a quietus to the agitated 
nerves, a relief from fatigue, prevents the waste of 
tissues, and that many smokers and chewers round out a 
good old age of eighty or ninety years. It is true that 
the human system is so wonderfully constituted, by the 
wisdom and mercy of the Creator, that it can stand a 
great deal of abuse before it finally succumbs. Ironclad, 
tobacco-proof, and alcohol-proof — some persons seem 
to carry a charmed life, that defies sickness and death. 
But these are the exceptions that confirm the general 
rule. Let no man, however stalwart, presume too much 
on the native strength of his constitution. To every one 
the day of reckoning, though long delayed, comes at last, 
when all the items that have been registered in the day- 
book are transferred to the ledger, and summarized in 
one fatal bill. A lawyer and statesman of New York, just 
deceased, adds another vivid illustration to this statement. 
He prided himself on his ability to endure, freely exposed 
himself on all occasions, never wore an overcoat in the 
coldest weather, always slept with a window open, but at last 
dropped off suddenly with Bright's disease of the kidneys. 
But, haply, it is not always death which is the result of 
our numerous and often unconscious violations of the 
laws of health. It is the abridgment and diminution of 
life. It is the gradual and almost imperceptible depres- 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 1J 



sion of the vital energies. It is the taking on, one after 
another, of the ills flesh is heir to, until a man lives only a 
half life, or a quarter life, where God intended he should 
live a whole life. One of the most melancholy of all spec- 
tacles is a chronic invalid, — one who can neither live nor 
die, and whose prayer might well be that of the Apostle 
who exclaimed, " Who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ?" 

A man in the city, vexed and worried by business, or 
one worn down in the country by hard manual labor, may 
feel a temporary quieting of the nerves, or a gentle stim- 
ulus to the mental and physical energies, by his pipe or 
his glass ; but all, and more than all, that is gained in one 
direction is lost in another. Temporary relief is pur- 
chased at the fearful cost of a lasting blow to the nervous 
system. The chief reason why men in the press and wear 
of society find their nerves so unstrung and shattered, is 
because they have early resorted to stimulants and 
narcotics, in place of the appropriate rest and nutrition 
which nature demands. They have so far perverted the 
instincts of nature that they cannot get along except by 
re-enforcing themselves by artificial and injurious stimu- 
lants and substitutes, and thus maintaining a kind of 
counterfeit strength. A victim of daily doses of rum and 
tobacco often cannot write his name straight, until he has 
steadied his trembling hand by a glass of liquor or a 
cigar. He is simply a sick man, and does not know it; 
but the day is not far distant when he will know it. 

Particular Diseases Caused by the Use of Tobacco. 

Professor Miller, of Edinburgh, says ("Tobacco, and the 
Diseases it produces ") : " As medical men, we know that 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 



smoking injures the whole organism, puts a man's stomach 
and whole frame out of order ; but it acts mainly, as all 
other poisons do, on the nervous system. Not only is the 
physical effect most debilitating; it tends, in plain lan- 
guage, to paralysis ; for the cases are not a few in which 
there is not only an approach to paralysis in the trembling 
of the hand, but in the lower extremities, from no cause 
on earth but inveterate ' smoking. If you get a medical 
opinion in favor of a pipe, it is the opinion of the man 
who indulges in it. An unbiased and unprejudiced opin- 
ion in favor of tobacco is yet to come. The effects of 
narcotics, mental and bodily, I can fairly testify are nothing 
but evil. I stand in a position of giving an experienced, 
as well as an impartial observation. I am standing on 
unassailable ground, when I say that every man, woman, 
and child who uses tobacco unnecessarily, to any appreci- 
able extent, is thereby injuring himself, or herself, morally, 
mentally, and physically, more or less." 

Sir Benjamin Brodie, F. R. S., from the result of ex- 
periments upon animals, tells us that the poison acts by 
destroying the functions of the brain. Many observers 
on the Continent have noticed the inferior attainments of 
students who smoke. Thus, Dr. Bertillon — the most 
eminent writer of the day on medical statistics — found in 
1855, that, of the pupils then at the Polytechnic School 
of Paris, one hundred and eight smoked and fifty-two 
did not smoke. The non-smokers stood higher, intel- 
lectually, than the smokers. He furthermore found that 
the mean rank of the smokers, as compared with the non- 
smokers, deteriorated, from their entering to their leaving 
the school. 

The " British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review," 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 1 9 



for January, 1861, says : " We see with satisfaction that the 
Minister of Public Instruction of France has issued a 
circular, addressed to the directors of colleges and 
schools, forbidding the use of tobacco and cigars to 
students." 

Physiological experiments have shown (Ed. Smith, 
British Association, 1864, &c.) that smoking makes the 
heart beat more rapidly, from the paralyzing effects of 
nicotine on minute vessels of the system, which no longer 
offer their usual resistance to the force-pump of the 
circulation. Nicotine, as for convenience the poisoning 
principle of tobacco is called, enters the body by the 
stomach, the lungs, and by the skin ; and its effects are 
uniform by whatever gate it enters. Dr. Edward Smith 
found that when his pulse was 74 per minute before 
smoking, it rose, after smoking eleven minutes, to 112. 
The effect produced by tobacco on the heart is caused by 
its paralyzing effect on the minute vessels of the capilla- 
ries. These being relaxed can no longer offer effectual 
resistance ; and the heart, freed from this control, in- 
creases the rapidity of its strokes. This increase of the 
heart's action results partly also from the paralyzing effect 
of the drug upon the pneumogastric nerve, which supplies 
the stomach and lungs with nerve power. 

Dr. Drysdale (" Tobacco, and the Diseases it pro- 
duces ") says: "The influence of tobacco upon the 
eyesight is well known. One of the symptoms produced 
in acute poisoning by tobacco is blindness ; and chronic 
poisoning gives rise to similar symptoms. Mackenzie, of 
Glasgow, first noticed that male patients affected with one 
species of amaurosis were mostly great lovers of tobacco 
in some form. 



20 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



" Sichel, of Paris, found some cases of blindness easily 
cured by cessation from the use of tobacco. Hutchinson 
narrated, before the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society 
of London, thirty-seven cases of a species of amaurosis, 
where twenty-three of the patients were great smokers ; 
and Wordsworth has confirmed these views of Mackenzie 
and Hutchinson. In one week I saw, in 1874, at the 
Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, two cases of tobacco 
amaurosis in young men, neither of whom had attained 
the age of thirty. The first had chewed continually ; and 
the other smoked the enormous quantity of one ounce of 
shag tobacco daily. Both were completely and irretrievably 
blind, from this dangerous habit. But weak sight is also 
commonly caused by snuffing, as well as by smoking and 
chewing. Tobacco amaurosis is much commoner now 
than it used to be." 

Mr. John Couper, of the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital, 
says that " patients with tobacco amaurosis describe them- 
selves as always living in a dim light even at noonday." 
Mr. George Critchett, the great London authority on 
diseases of the eye, tells me that he is constantly consulted 
by gentlemen for commencing blindness, caused solely by 
great smoking. He accordingly condemns smoking in 
most unqualified terms, as most dangerous to human 
health. 

Dr. Kostral, physician to the Royal Factory of Tobacco 
at Iglau (" Ann. d'Hygiene," published in 1871), brought 
before the Medical Society at Vienna, in 18 71, some sta- 
tistics relating to the workers in that government tobacco- 
factory. " There were 1,942 of these workers, of ages from 
thirteen to fifty-six. They are only taken into the factory 
if they are likely to live there for twenty years. The 



ANTI- TOBA CCO. 2 1 



workshops are well arranged and ventilated ; but during 
their ten hours of work the operatives are exposed to an 
atmosphere charged with the dust of tobacco and the vapor 
of nicotine. This is found to be especially noxious to young 
workers recently entering, or to those convalescent from 
sickness. Thus the majority of deaths among the children 
and work-girls in the first month is attributed to narcotic 
poisoning. 

u Of a hundred boys, from twelve to sixteen, who entered 
the works, seventy-two fell sick in the first six months. 
Their sickness lasted from two to twenty-eight days, and 
consisted especially in congestion of the brain, different 
nervous affections, pains in the region of the heart, palpi- 
tation, pallor, inflammation of the stomach, intestines, and 
lining membrane of the eyelids, with fever, lassitude, cold 
sweats, want of appetite and sleeplessness." 

Dr. B. W. Richardson, F. R. S., says "that smoking 
produces disturbances in the blood, causing undue fluidity 
and change in the red corpuscles ; in the stomach, giving 
rise to debility, nausea, and sickness ; on the heart, caus- 
ing debility of the organ and irregular action ; on the 
organs of sense, causing confusion of vision, bright lines, 
luminous specks, and long retention of images on the 
retina j with analogous symptoms in the ear, such as ina- 
bility to sharply define sounds, and the annoyance of a 
sharp ringing sound, like a whistle or a bell ; on the mu- 
cous membrane of the mouth, causing enlargement and 
soreness of the tonsils, — ' smoker's sore- throat,' — red- 
ness, dryness, and occasional peeling off of the membrane, 
and either unnatural firmness and contraction, or spongi- 
ness of the gums." 

Dr. Jolly (Association Francaise contre l'Abus du Tabac) 



22 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



mentions the strange coincidence of the increase of paraly- 
sis and insanity with the ascending figure of the simulta- 
neous consumption of tobacco and alcohol in France. 
With regard to insanity, Jolly alleges that French statistics 
show that tobacco is a great cause of that disease. Thus, 
in 1830, when the amount of tobacco sold by the French 
government was about 11,000,000 kilogrammes, there 
were 8,000 lunatics in France; and in 1862, when 
28,000,000 kilogrammes were sold, there were no less 
than 44,000 lunatics in French asylums. " It is to be 
remembered," says Dr. Jolly, "that the tobaccos used by 
the Germans and other northern nations are very poor in 
nicotine, as is also the case with the tobacco of Turkey. 
French tobacco, such as that grown in Lot-et-Garonne, 
contains sometimes eight per cent of nicotine, and its use 
causes deafness, anosmia (loss of smell), amaurosis, weak 
sight, and progressive palsy. Virginia tobacco (shag, re- 
turns, &c.) is very strong, and contains about seven per 
cent of nicotine. The English and French working-classes, 
therefore, consume very dangerous kinds of tobacco." 

M. Decaise (" Comptes Rendus," to?ne 58, p. 1017), 
struck by the large number of boys, aged from nine to 
fifteen years, who smoked, inquired into the connection of 
this habit with the impairment of the general health. His 
observations were made on thirty-eight boys ; and in 
twenty- seven of them there were more or less distinct 
symptoms. Thus, in twenty-two there were various dis- 
orders of the circulation, anemic murmurs in the neck, 
palpitation, dyspepsia, weakening of intellect, and more 
or less increased desire for strong drink. In three, the 
pulse was intermittent. Ten of the boys had disturbed 
sleep, and four suffered from ulceration of the mouth. 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 23 



Eight of the boys were of ages from nine to twelve ; nine- 
teen of them from twelve to fifteen. 

Professor Kirk (" Nerves and Narcotics ") says that "nar- 
cotics, such as tobacco, are used because of the delicious 
sense of relief which, even upon the motor nerves being 
relaxed, steals over the smoker. You see a man who is 
restless and yet weary. Though careworn or toilworn, he 
seems as if he could not be still, but must be moving in 
one way or another. There is a state of uncomfortable 
irritation in his muscular system, or in the motor nerves 
that supply it. 

" By means of a narcotic, such as tobacco, this irrita- 
tion is subdued. The supply of vital force from the 
organic centres to the motor nerves is so much lessened 
that the irritating movement in them ceases. This gives 
a sense of relief to the person affected, and he fancies 
himself immensely benefited. He is not aware that the 
benefit is purchased at a very serious cost. He has not 
only lessened the supply of vital force for the time being, 
but has done a very considerable amount of injury to his 
vital system. He has, in fact, poisoned the springs of life 
within him. These will not afterwards give out their sup- 
ply of force, as they would have done, had the poisonous 
influence been withheld. 

" As soon as these organic nerves rally from the damp- 
ing effect of the narcotic, the irritation in the motor 
system returns, and the narcotic is called for anew. Fresh 
injury is now inflicted for the sake of the relaxed and 
easy condition desired. This goes on till the vital cen- 
tres, if at all delicate, totally fail to give supply to the 
motor nerves, and the sore experience of paralysis begins. 
The passing sense of ease and tranquillity produced by 



24 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



the poisonous substance is, however, so great that, even 
when a man knows he is bringing slowly upon himself such 
a calamity as this, he will go on indulging in the so-called 
luxury of the narcotic." 

Indictment One. 

The first indictment, therefore, against tobacco is, that 
it is a poison. It is not food, and can furnish no nutriment 
to build up the tissues of the system, or make amends 
for its waste, or permanently energize its motive-power. 
It is not a medicine that is safe to use, except in a few 
critical cases, and that only under experienced medical 
skill. As an emetic, a decoction of tobacco might expel 
some active poisons from the system. I knew of one 
instance in which it was successfully employed to relax 
the muscles in lockjaw. Habitual tobacco-users, under 
whatever form, must, therefore, be classed with opium, 
hasheesh, absinthe, and alcohol users, as those who, to 
a greater or less extent, and in proportion to the strength 
or weakness of their constitution, abridge the duration of 
life, and diminish its volume and capacity, by the intro- 
duction of a potent enemy, an active poison, into the very 
citadel of life. 

Indictment Two. 

The next indictment against tobacco is, that it is a 
needless expense. The financial question is always a moral 
question. Money is a trust to be used or abused. Morals, 
as well as health and life, are involved in the use of the lux- 
uries and indulgences of society. While the habitual use 



AXTI-TOBACCO. 2$ 



of tobacco does no good permanently, either to mind or 
body, — but, on the contrary, a great amount of evil, — it 
drains the purse, empties the larder and wardrobe, pauper- 
izes the home of comforts and pleasures and luxuries 
which are innocent, to feed one monstrous appetite, which 
is deadly in its effects. The national debt of the United 
States could be swept away in four years by turning upon 
it this gulf-stream of criminal self-indulgence and need- 
less luxury. The money expended for tobacco in the 
United States would discharge all the expenses of the 
religious and educational institutions. While the latter 
are engaged in building up the life of man and the 
national character, the former is sapping both with an 
unfailing drain. Do we wonder that children go ragged, 
houses unpainted, windows broken, animals left to shift 
for themselves in the winter's cold, shops bankrupt, farms 
and dwellings mortgaged, tramps and paupers swelling 
the list in this fair and prosperous land of ours? It is 
due. in no small part, to the tremendous wastes which we 
tolerate, and even excuse, as if they were the necessities 
and blessings of life, instead of its cancers — the waste by 
tobacco, the waste by alcohol, the waste by gambling, the 
waste by fire, the waste by war, by the social evil, by crime 
and ignorance. 

Indictment TJiree. 

The use of tobacco leads directly to drinking spiritu- 
ous liquors. Tobacco is prime minister to alcohol. The 
pipe is first-cousin to the mug. To take away the cup 
which is in a man's right hand, while he still holds his 
cigar in his left hand, is to leave the work of reform half- 
done. Chewing or smoking necessitates salivation ; saliva- 



26 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



vation, thrist ; thrist, drinking ; drinking, the dram, — a log- 
ical chain of iron, where every link draws his fellow. A 
burning cigar or pipe heats the lips, dries the mouth, in- 
flames the mucous membrane, parches the throat, and 
demands relief by drinking. Not to supply the drain upon 
the fluids of the system would cause intolerable dis- 
tress. But for this want and craving, water, tea or coffee, 
or soda would be but a vapid drink. It must be some- 
thing more strong and piquant — rum, gin, brandy, or 
whiskey, or at all events wine, beer, ale, or cider. As a 
well-nigh universal rule, when a boy begins to smoke or 
chew, he begins to drink liquors of some kind. Nor is 
the social habit without its effect here. While one treats 
his boon-companion to a cigar, his companion returns the 
compliment by treating him to a glass at the bar. Cigars 
and liquors are sold and used off the same counter, that 
where one is used, the other may likewise be used, and 
probably by the same parties. Such is the adroit foresight 
of the dram-seller. 

Indictment Four, 

The use of tobacco is an indignity to the female sex, and 
an outrage upon the common laws and usages of politeness. 
I shall not discuss here the question whether a man can 
be a gentleman, and smoke or chew. Suffice it to say 
that every person conversant in society knows full well 
that the customs of a truly polite and refined community 
are often set at defiance ; that the offensive spittoon 
corrupts the air of the sitting-room and parlor ; that, worse 
still, the floors of churches, court-houses, cars, and 
steamers reek with the filthy expectorations of the chewer 
or smoker j that the sweet air of heaven, in which all have 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 2*J 



a common right and interest, is blighted by the trail of 
smoke which the cigar or pipe leaves behind it ; that the 
dinner-tables of college commencements or private fes- 
tivity are enveloped in clouds of poisonous and acrid 
smoke, painful to every sense, except to those whose 
senses have by long usage been dragooned into calling 
bitter sweet, and sweet bitter. Even the sacred haunts of 
the Muses, the libraries of the learned, the parlors of 
elegant life, as well as the exchanges of business, and the 
offices of trade and finance, are blasted by these fumes of 
the weed, which are bad enough when fresh from the 
lighted cigar, but which, grown stale, are the very opposite 
to airs from Araby the blest. 

It is true some women of old smoked their pipes, and 
some still use the more dangerous cigarette ; but as a 
general custom women are exempt from the evil. They 
detest and loathe it in their fathers, husbands, and sons, as 
a general thing, though some may be so weak when the 
point-blank question is put to them, whether they like the 
smoke of a cigar or not, as to say, contrary to their real 
feeling, that they do, while at heart they hate it. How 
can pure and refined women endure the presence of 
men, such as we meet with every day in the streets and 
cars and stores, whose breath is a stench, whose lips are 
coated over with the remains of the quid, and whose 
clothing exhales the stale effluvia of countless dead cigars ! 
Yet such are the companions which King Tobacco furnishes 
to the scenes of private life — to the parlor, the table, the 
bridal- chamber, the sick-room ; and to the public assembly 
— the church, the sociable, the ball-room, and the concert- 
hall ! Can we think it strange that some of the most 
eloquent voices lifted up against this widespread social 



2 8 ANTI- TOBA CCO. 



abuse should be those of noble women, whose senses 
have been outraged, whose health has been undermined 
whose children have been born with a degenerated 
constitution, because the lords of creation have been 
pleased to indulge from boyhood in an unhealthful and 
repulsive habit? 

Physicians very generally agree in the opinion that 
much of the positive illness, and still more of the 
lingering invalidism of women, are chargeable upon the 
tobacco pestilence. Their more sensitive frames and 
delicate constitutions peculiarly expose them to this 
noxious influence. While the hardships and deprivations 
of poverty, — immensely enhanced by the waste of means 
and money thus engendered, — the curse of the dramshop, 
the fire-water, and the fire-pipe, inflicted on the mothers, 
the wives, the daughters, and sisters of the land, are 
offences that cry to heaven. 

Indictment Five. 

The use of tobacco becomes an enslaving habit. Like 
the deadly boa-constrictor, when it once winds its fatal 
folds around its victim, it can scarcely ever be shaken 
off; and even when it is, it always lies in wait to steal back 
and regain its hold upon its subject at the opportune 
moment. Drunkenness itself is not more a passion than 
chewing and smoking. He who has once formed the 
habit is ever after a slave, and has a master who says, 
" Come," and he cometh, and " Go," and he goeth. The 
victim has parted with his manly freedom forever. He 
has a chain, as much as the Algerine captive, round his 
body and round his soul. The first cry, so jailers say, 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 29 



which arrested criminals utter after their imprisonment, 
is for tobacco, and the second is for employment. 
How often and painfully the slaves of this degrading 
habit desire to break their chains, but — alas, in vain ! It 
has a fascination and compulsion which they cannot 
resist. They would give worlds to throw off the hateful 
bondage, and be as free as when they came from their 
mothers' arms ; but they have sold their birthright, not 
even for an honest mess of pottage, but for a smoke, for 
an unsubstantial puff, for the titillation of a few morbid 
nerves, that yields no nourishment to the system, no 
strength, no health — but, on the other hand, entails 
weakness, morbidness, disease, expense, sickness, and 
haply, death, and, worse than all, opens the door to 
a throng of temptations. 

Indictment Six. 

The tobacco plague is a perversion of the gifts of God, 
and turns his blessings into curses. As a medicine, as a 
poison, it may have, in rare instances, its place and its 
use, as alcohol, as arsenic and other potent poisons have, — 
but as an article of daily and universal indulgence, never. 
Its cultivation exhausts the soil more than almost any 
other crop. It subsidizes the commerce of the world as 
opium does, as liquors do, to enslave and impoverish 
mankind. It absorbs a vast amount of human labor and 
capital, to load the shoulders of men with new burdens, 
grievous to be borne, and to implant in the human frame 
pains and diseases not native to our race. It cultivates 
selfishness of character, self-indulgence, absorption in 
one's own pleasure, and disregard of the feelings and 



30 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



comfort of others. The finer and nobler qualities of 
character perish under the predominance of a habit 
which steadily caters to one's own gratification, regardless 
of what others think or feel. A civilization given over 
to tobacco and spirituous liquors, as ours largely is, never 
can ripen and refine those traits which, when aggregated 
and multiplied, will constitute the kingdom of God on 
the earth. 

Indictment Seven. 

But the evil of evils of this deleterious habit is the 
deterioratio?i which it causes to the successive generations 
of the human race. If the habit let go its victim at the 
grave, and that was the end-all of its malign influence, we 
could look with more complacency on its evil conse- 
quences. But that is far from being the fact. The well- 
nigh unanimous testimony of medical and scientific 
authorities is, that the children of parents addicted to 
the use of tobacco inherit a weakened or diseased con- 
stitution, and are exposed to physical penalties from 
which other, more favored children are exempt. 

In an article in the " Dublin University Magazine," the 
authority of Herbert Spencer, Dr. Rumsey, and Dr. Mor- 
gan is quoted in support of the position that the stamina 
of the town populations in England has deteriorated ; and 
among other causes, the present evil is cited. " It would 
be foolish," says the article, "to attribute this lowering of 
physical stamina to the sole influence of tobacco. The 
causes which have produced this result are no doubt 
manifold and complex; but for the reasons we shall 
adduce, we think it would be equally foolish to say that 
the Indian weed had no share in it. . . . Yet fashion is 



ANTI- TOBA CCO. 3 1 



so strong, that this custom is increasing, and one who 
walks through the streets of a city may see that it is 
no longer confined to men, but is daily becoming more 
common amongst boys." . . . There is not a solitary 
physician who will contradict the statement, that these 
young smokers are inflicting irreparable injury upon their 
constitutions, are poisoning the very springs of life, and 
will transmit to their descendants weaker bodies and 
weaker brains. 

" Every medical man will testify that this juvenile smok- 
ing is an unmixed evil, detrimental alike to body and 
mind, and pointing inevitably to racial degeneracy." 

Sir Benjamin Brodie (" London Lancet ") asks : " What 
will be the result if this habit be continued by future gene- 
rations ? It is but too true that the sins of the fathers are 
visited upon their children. We may here take warning 
from the fate of the Red Indians of America. An intelli- 
gent American physician gives the following explanation 
of the gradual extinction of this remarkable people. One 
generation of them became addicted to the use of the 
fire-water. They have a degenerate and comparatively 
imbecile progeny, who indulge in the same vicious habit 
with their parents. Their progeny is still more degene- 
rate ; and, after a very few generations, the races cease alto- 
gether. We may also take warning from the history of 
another nation, who, some few centuries ago, while following 
the banners of Solyman the Magnificent, were the ter- 
ror of Christendom, but who since then, having become 
more addicted to tobacco -smoking than any of the Euro- 
pean nations, are now the lazy and lethargic Turks, held 
in contempt by all civilized communities." 

The " Dublin University Magazine," on the Tobacco 



32 ANTI-TOBACCO. 



Question, further says : " All medical men agree that all 
smoking by the young is excess, and is the sure 
forerunner of dyspeptic horrors. It is probably the 
greatest source of physical evil that the next generation 
will have to lament ; for its witcheries are so seductive 
that the victim is willing to attribute to any cause, rather 
than the true one, the mischief which it is working on his 
constitution. The common sequelce — the shaking hand 
and palpitating heart, the impaired digestion, the inter- 
mittent pulse — are complacently ascribed to overwork, to 
the railway speed at which we live, to the incessant de- 
mands made upon our powers by a world which is ' too 
much with us for resistance to importunities that never 
cease. 7 Like father like son. The fathers have eaten 
sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 
The indulgence in tobacco by our youth and young men 
will affect not only themselves, but the future race of Eng- 
land. Fortunately for us, it is a vice almost entirely mas- 
culine. If the daughters of England were to commence 
weakening their vital forces by the use of nicotine, we 
should find the children of another generation with a 
hereditary taste for poison, and a diminished power of 
resisting its inroads ; they would be unhealthy, dyspeptic, 
and nervous.' ' 

Dr. Richardson says : "I do not hesitate to say that if a 
community of both sexes, whose progenitors were finely 
formed and powerful, were to be trained to the early 
practice of smoking, and if marriage were confined to 
the smokers, an apparently new and a physically inferior 
race of men and women would be bred up." 



ANTI-TOBACCO. 33 



Conclusion. 

We thus see that the dangers to health and life, to 
character and prosperity, to happiness and the purposes of 
human existence, are such that no man can with safety- 
abandon himself to the weed in any of its fashionable 
forms of use. The testimony of the scientist, the physi- 
cian, the moralist, and the patriot, is nearly unanimous 
against smoking and chewing. The tobacco pest has 
acquired such enormous proportions in all civilized 
communities that it has awakened the anxiety of every 
disinterested lover of his race. Societies are organized 
in Great Britain and America to stem the growing evil. 
The medical profession are alarmed at the inroads made 
by this insidious narcotic upon the stamina of the rising 
generation. Numerous publications are issued in behalf 
of reform. And as every other gigantic evil which has 
threatened the stability and peace of modern civilization 
has gone down before the rising intelligence and moral sen- 
timent of the age, we may rationally hope that this cancer 
upon the health of the body politic and social will be 
exterminated. Meantime it becomes the duty of every 
one, conscious of the truth upon this subject, to bring 
first his own conduct into harmony with his convictions ; 
and in the next place to seek to establish the same 
convictions, and promote the same conduct, in society 
at large. It is the noble sentiment of Dr. Willard 
Parker : " I do not place my individual self in opposition 
to tobacco ; but science, in the form of physiology and 
hygiene, is opposed to it — and science is the expression 
of God's will in the government of his work in the 
universe.' ' 3 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

BY 

RUSSELL LANT CARPENTER, B.A. 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE MAYOR AND PEOPLE 
OF B RID PORT, ENGLAND, 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 



Mr. Mayor and Friends : 

T T might seem a trivial subject on which to lecture — 
•*• a weed. But tobacco claims to be the weed, just as 
the trade in intoxicants * claims to be the trade ; and the 
weed, like the trade, is of great importance to the public 
revenue and affects the national character. The customs 
paid on tobacco, in the year ending March 31, 1881, 
amounted to ,£8,658,947; so that, if this luxury is an 
innocent one, it may be viewed with complacency. The 
sale of it gave some employment to 303,816 dealers, who 
paid £79,893 for the privilege, — to say nothing of the 
thousands engaged in 597 manufactories. If, then, it is 
attacked, there is a great host to defend it. Much has 
been written respecting it ; but I am not aware that either 
its merits or demerits have met with any systematic 
examination in Bridport. Like alcohol it is an intoxicant, 
or poison ; but while Temperance organizations have been 
active in assailing liquid intoxicants, they have left intoxi- 
cating fumes pretty much to themselves. In this country, 
at least, far more poverty and crime are chargeable on 
drink than on smoke j and those who think it too much 



38 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

to ask that a man should give up two bad habits at once 
have let the reformed drunkard smoke his pipe in peace. 
Many even suppose that smokers are less likely to drink, 
and therefore the habit is often encouraged in Temperance 
coffee-houses. On this point we may express an opinion 
by-and-by. 

If there is truth in a quarter of what has been said 
of the bad effects of tobacco, it seems strange that those 
whose calling it is to be "watchmen" and to "warn the 
people," have been so silent respecting it in the pulpit. 
This reticence may partly arise from our conventional 
notions. Wine, stro?ig drink, drunkenness, &c., are 
" Scripture words." We read denunciations of them in our 
devotional services ; but those who think more of the 
letter than of the spirit of the Bible deem it unscriptural 
and undignified, if not rather profane, to preach about 
tobacco ! Its triviality is its safeguard ; there is levity in 
smoke. How can you fight with a cloud or a puff? And 
if it is treated seriously, what refined language can 
fully deal with a habit which, in itself or its results, is 
often so filthy? Many, therefore, avoid the subject 
because they do not know how to speak upon it without 
causing more displeasure than benefit ; while others are 
already slaves to the habit, and have no desire to question 
its propriety or expose its abuses. 

Meanwhile the weed keeps on growing. While less 
tobacco is taken in the form of snuff, there has been a 
great increase of smoking. For this, three reasons may 
be given, (i) We have had far more intercourse than 
formerly with smoking nations, especially the Germans. 
(2) The facilities for outdoor smoking are greatly in- 
creased by the invention of lucifers ; in my early days 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 39 

those who wanted to strike a light had to use a piece 
of steel, a piece of flint, and a piece of tinder, besides 
a brimstone match. And (3) The more prosperous condi- 
tion of the country has been accompanied by greater 
indulgence in luxuries. Our riquor bill, as well as our 
tobacco bill, has about doubled within the last forty years. 
But while the consumption of intoxicating drinks has 
increased, there is also an increasing conviction of the 
evils resulting from them, which has led, in thousands 
of instances, to their disuse ; and those who can expose 
the injurious effects of narcotics ought not to be silent in 
despair. It is my intention to say a little on the nature of 
tobacco, and to consider its influence on health, on 
property, on freedom, and on morality. Viewing it thus 
seriously, I should regard my theme as quite suitable 
for the pulpit — as much so as the opium-question ; but, 
on many accounts, I prefer to address my fellow-townsmen 
from this public platform. It will be my duty to speak 
without respect of persons — and without disrespect to 
persons. It would be an ill compliment to those who use 
tobacco if I took for granted that they would wish me 
to express myself timidly or obscurely. I invite the 
criticism of those who are not ashamed to give their 
names, and am desirous to correct any mistake. Having 
to speak on so many branches of the subject, I can do 
full justice to none ; but it is my wish to waken inquiry, 
and to lead you to read and to think on the subject, and 
then to express your convictions, and act up to them. 

The tobacco-plant belongs to the botanical order of 
Solanece, or the deadly-nightshade tribe, some species of 
which are to be found in almost every region of the 
globe : it comprises henbane and other plants noted for 



40 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

narcotic qualities. Tobacco was used in Persia long 
before the discovery of America ; it is supposed to have 
been introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh and 
the settlers who returned from Virginia, about the year 
1586. 1 They also imported a plant of the same order, 
which has been of immense importance to Europe — the 
potato — of which the leaves, stem, and fruit contain the 
narcotic principle ; though the tubers of the roots, when 
cooked, are so useful as food. What a contrast between 
a steaming dish of potatoes and a cloud of tobacco- 
smoke ! 

Whether or not smoking is a poisonous habit, tobacco 
is unquestionably a poison. It is not every poison that 
kills rapidly. There are noted poisons to which persons 
gradually accustom themselves, and live on, sometimes to 
old age. Mr. Solly, F. R. S., remarks : " The opium- 
eater can take an ounce of laudanum for his morning's 
dram, and feel it not ; when the eighth part of it would be 
fatal to the uninitiated." In Upper Styria, it is a custom 
to take arsenic, which in small doses has certain pleasant 
effects ; and some Styrians may say that they should 
die if deprived of their arsenic. While many have been 
killed by raw spirits, others get to drink them habitually, as 
though eau de vie was really the "water of life." But this 
does not prove that these poisons are not poisons, nor 
even that the system which is gradually used to them, and 

1 The earliest detailed account of tobacco in England is said to 
be in " Joyfull newes oute of the newe founde worlde. Englished 
by John Frampton, London, 1577," which contains a translation 
of a Spanish work, and also of a French treatise, relating the in- 
troduction of it into France by Nicot (whence nicotine, &c.)> who 
met with it in Portugal about 1560. Marvellous cures, especially 
of wounds, ulcers, and sores, were attributed to it. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 4 1 

is so enslaved by them that abstinence is a terrible 
privation, is none the worse for them. 

"The constituent part of tobacco which makes it at 
once so agreeable and so dangerous to health is nicotine. 
. . . One tenth of a grain of it will kill a middle-sized 
dog in three minutes ; and ... it has been calculated 
that in a single cigar there is enough nicotine, if given 
pure, to kill two men." * Persons have died in a few 
hours after accidentally swallowing tobacco or a little 
snuff. 2 The oil formed in burning it is used by savages to 
poison their arrows. "A little brother and his sister 
amused themselves by making soap-bubbles with their 
father's old pipe ; the boy died from imbibing the essen- 
tial oil that was in it, and the girl was dangerously ill." 3 
In 1879 an inquest was held on a boy of fourteen, who 
had been smoking a much-used tobacco-pipe, and died 
the next morning. 4 A man in Paris had been cleaning 
his pipe with a knife with which he accidentally cut one of 
his fingers; in a few hours his hand and arm became 
inflamed, and amputation afforded the only chance of 
saving his life. 5 Many cases are recorded in which the 
votaries of tobacco have put the scrapings of their pipes 
on children's sores as a remedy, and have caused their 
death. All poisons have certan medicinal qualities, and 
infusions of tobacco are used in some skin diseases ; 

1 " Tobacco, and the Diseases it Produces/' by C. R. Drysdale, 
M. D., &c, 1880, p. 5. 

2 "Monthly Letters of the Anti-Tobacco 800617,'' &c, October, 
1879, an d April, 1880. Dr. C. Clay's " Two Lectures on Tobacco," 
1842, p. 12. 

3 " The Workman's Pipe." A Lecture by the Rev. Dr. Ritchie. 
Third edition, 1878, pp. 49, 50. 

4 " Monthly Letters," p. 168. 5 Ibid. p. 159. 



42 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

but, unless applied with judgment, dreadful consequences 
have ensued. Dr. Clay says (p. 12) : "I have been 
called to children writhing in horrid convulsions from 
having had the decoction of tobacco applied for the itch 
and scald-head, and I have always experienced great 
difficulty in restoring them; three instances in my own 
recollection were attended with fatal results." Soldiers, 
wanting to disable themselves from duty, have applied a 
moistened tobacco-leaf to the armpit, inducing extreme 
prostration and sickness. The physician of a government 
tobacco-factory at Iglau, in Moravia, reported that " of a 
hundred boys who entered the works, seventy-two fell 
sick in the first six months ; " and deaths are not infrequent 
there from narcotic poisoning. 

The ill effects of a poison are not to be measured by 
the number of deaths of which it is the obvious cause. 
It is not easy to estimate the amount of sickness and in- 
jury resulting from tobacco ; but medical men warn us of 
its tendencies. All smoke is injurious to the eyes ; but 
tobacco, which acts on the optic nerve, frequently causes 
blindness, and color-blindness, so dangerous in railway 
signalmen. The eminent London oculist, Mr. Critchett, 
says that he is constantly consulted by gentlemen for com- 
mencing blindness, caused solely by great smoking. Others 
bear a similar testimony. 1 If not too far advanced, 
the malady has been removed by total abstinence from 
tobacco. The smoker's sore throat and diseases of the 
tongue and gums are also notorious. " Nicotine enters 
the body by the stomach, the lungs, and the skin ; and its 
effects are uniform by whatever gate it enters." " The 

1 See Dr. Drysdale, p. 9; and "Narcotism/' No. 31, p. 3, No. 
55, &c, published by the Anti-Tobacco Society. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 43 

heart beats more rapidly from the paralyzing effects of the 
nicotine on the minute vessels of the system, which no 
longer offer their usual resistance to the force-pumps of 
the circulation.' ' Dr. E. Smith found his pulse rise from 
74 to ii2 ? after smoking eleven minutes. Another physi- 
cian took count of his pulse every five minutes during an 
hour's smoking, and computed that it had beat 1,000 
times in excess. 1 Dr. Townson, a physician to insurance 
companies, stated that nearly every one of those whom he 
had rejected, after examining them for life policies, had 
brought on an affection of the heart through excessive 
smoking. 2 Brain diseases, and those that result from im- 
paired digestion, are frequently produced by tobacco. It 
is no proof of its harmlessness that many who use it are as 
healthy as, or even more healthy than others who abstain. 
Many soldiers live longer than others who have never 
endangered their lives in war. No one now doubts that 
foul air is noxious ; yet in ill-drained towns, where hun- 
dreds every year fall its victims, others are to be found 
enjoying better health, and reaching a greater age, than 
many who have wholesome abodes. Thousands die every 
year from alcoholic poisoning, and the probabilities of life 
are, on the whole, far better for abstainers than for drinkers ; 
and yet there are drinkers who are more healthful than 
many abstainers. There is a great difference in the sus- 
ceptibility to poisonous influences in different persons ; 
and those who offend against the laws of nature in one 
respect may be observant in others ; yet any habit that is 
unwholesome must be more or less hurtful. The first time 

1 " Narcotism," No. 20. 

2 " Monthly Letters/' p. 267. See also p. 259, " The Tobacco 
Hearth 



44 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO, 

that any one uses tobacco (except, perhaps, those who 
have been brought up in its atmosphere) its noxious prop- 
erties are evident enough ; and if these seem to pass away 
— if " Nature withdraws her monitor when the warning is 
unheeded " — the evil is not removed because it is stored 
up secretly. 

It is pleaded that were wholesomeness our rule, other 
things in continual use should be abandoned — that tea 
and coffee, e. g., are as injurious to some as tobacco is to 
others. But " two wrongs " — or even twenty — " do not 
make a right." There may be excess, no doubt, in " the 
cup which cheers but not inebriates/ ' and many weaken 
their digestions and impair their nerves by tea or coffee 
drinking ; yet I never heard of any one being killed by 
swallowing a few leaves of tea or grains of coffee. There 
is nothing but what is good for something, and we have not 
denied that tobacco has medicinal uses ; but those who 
take medicines when they are not ill may become so ill as 
to get beyond the help of medicine ; those who play with 
a poison may find that the poison makes them its sport 
and its victim. Tobacco has been commended as a disin- 
fectant, destroying the germs of disease, and as a prophy- 
lactic, rendering the smoker insensible to infection ; but 
though it kills the blight on plants, it may not destroy that 
which blights mankind ; and insensibility to danger is by 
no means safety. Indeed, it is said that smokers, from 
their impaired vitality, are the more liable to take a disease ; 
while it has often happened that cures have been checked, 
when the atmosphere of the room has been tainted with 
smoke. The oblivion of pain and discomfort resulting 
from tobacco is often a doubtful benefit. If a poor man 
smokes to allay his hunger, he forgets that hunger should 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 45 

stimulate him to procure food. It is a mockery, if a man 
needs bread, to give him a weed. Tobacco does not feed 
him ; and because he is not well fed, tobacco is more in- 
jurious to him than to his well-nurtured neighbor • he be- 
comes emaciated. The smoker may feel warmed, because 
his sense of cold is numbed ; while the thermometer 
would show that he has really lowered his temperature. 
If any one smokes to overcome an unwholesome smell, 
he only adds to the nuisance ; the ashes and smoke are 
two dirts the more. The carbonic oxide from the imper- 
fectly kindled tobacco is an additional element of danger. 
Smoke blinds in more senses than one. 

Tobacco is taken in different forms. At one time snuff 
was in fashion. Some great men have been great snuffers, 
— among them Napoleon I., who kept it loose in his 
pocket ; his life was shortened by it. Lunatics are usually 
very fond of snuff. It is the dried leaf and part of the stalk 
of tobacco, ground down ; but it is also adulterated with 
other irritating substances. Carlyle told Mr. W. Maccall 
that he had been cured of snuff-taking when he was four 
years old. Some old ladies offered him a pinch from their 
box. " A succession of explosions followed, and," said he, 
"I thought my head was blown off." At the age of 
eleven he unfortunately became a smoker. It is no com- 
pliment to call a person " snuffy." The snuff he drops 
hurts our noses, his nose offends our eyes, and the habit 
is not only unpleasant, but injurious ; it often results in 
apoplexy. 

Another use, or abuse, of tobacco, is chewmg. This is 
not a custom in England, except among sailors, but 
Americans are notorious for it. In the prison at Black- 
well's Island, New York, a few years ago, there were not a 



46 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

dozen out of 936 males who did not chew tobacco, and 
about 162 pounds were consumed every fortnight. When 
the allowance was stopped they refused to work, till soli- 
tary confinement and a bread-and-water diet brought them 
to terms. 1 Chewing, of course, involves spitting; and 
saliva impregnated with tobacco is not a pleasant sight. 
All travellers in the United States are struck with the 
spitting. Mr. White, of New York, in his recent work on 
" England," noticed with pleasure the absence of spit- 
toons ; for across the Atlantic one sees them everywhere — 
in steamers, in homes, in churches, in the capitol — but 
also very obvious tokens that they are not always used 
when they should be. The dyspepsia, which is so prevalent 
in America, is no doubt aggravated by this nasty practice, 
which no one justifies. 

Smoking is the usual mode of treating the weed in this 
country. Its distinctive evil is the injury that it inflicts 
on others. The smoker has neither the power nor the 
wish to consume his own smoke ; all in his company 
must share it — will they, nill they. There is, however, a 
special harm to himself. The saliva must absorb some of 
the smoke. He either spits it out or swallows it. If he 
swallows it he takes an infusion of tobacco ; mild it may 
be, but the repeated dose is not harmless. If he spits, he 
practises a nauseous habit, and wastes the saliva which 
nature gave him for important uses. Smoking dries the 
mouth and throat, and causes thirst. Those who like the 
narcotic intoxicant do not necessarily desire alcoholic in- 

1 " Monthly Letters," p. 104. On the other hand, after the late 
terrible fires in Michigan, the convicts in the Ohio State prison 
sent a gift to the sufferers of a hundred dollars — the result partly 
of their relinquishment of tobacco. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 47 

toxicants ; the effects are different. The Mohammedans, 
who are great smokers, are prohibited from taking wine, 
and may prefer the dreamy influence of the weed. On 
the other hand, publicans always sell tobacco ; which, if 
they thought that smoking hindered drinking, they would 
not care to do. The pipe and pot go together. I wish 
that the Three Cups Y would stand on their own merits 
and discard the pipe. 

Drinkers are often ignorant as to what they drink, so 
are smokers as to what they smoke. There is a remark- 
able difference in the properties of different kinds of to- 
bacco, as has been proved by analysts. The dried leaves 
from various districts in France yielded from 4.64 to 7.96 
per cent of nicotine ; while in the Havana leaf there was 
only 2 per cent ; the Virginia weed contains three times 
as much as that of Maryland. 2 But of course those who 
ask for a Havana cannot be sure of what they may get. It 
has been lately stated that an immense quantity of cheap 
European tobacco is shipped to Cuba, to be made up and 
exported as Havana cigars. The Act of Parliament 
against the adulteration of tobacco informs us of various 
noxious articles used by unscrupulous manufacturers. 
Some, however, are comparatively innocent, such as 
sawdust, peat, and seaweed ; so that the workman's bad 
tobacco may not be as poisonous as his neighbor's best 
Virginia. When I was in Baltimore I went into the great 
tobacco-warehouses. A pig was wandering about — she 
seemed quite at home there ; the leaves were being pulled 

1 A Temperance coffee-house for the sale of tea, coffee, and 
cocoa (three cups), &c. 

2 See Watt's " Dictionary of Chemistry," v. 45, quoted in " The 
Tobacco Question," p. 6. 



48 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

by unwashed negroes — without pocket handkerchiefs. 
But those who do not object to poison cannot be expected 
to mind dirt. 1 

" Strong drink " used to be thought essential to bodily 
strength. Masters insisted on their servants drinking it, 
lest they should be inefficiently served. Even scientists 
shared the delusion, till working-men put the matter to 
the proof, and taught their teachers that more work, in the 
long run, could be done without it. Tobacco, being a 
modern innovation, has not got this prescriptive praise. 
Few, whose opinion is worth anything, will maintain that it 
is essential to health or active duty ; on the contrary, those 
who are training for various manly exercises declare it to 
be detrimental. It is said, however, to " minister to a 
mind diseased," to soothe the troubled nerves, and to en- 
able a man to do a larger amount of intellectual work. 
Many literary men smoke, it is true, and the smoke-loving 
Germans have been famous for their industry as scholars ; 
but it does not follow that they might not have been 
stronger in mind without it. We have been told by some, 
who profess scarcely to smoke at all, that when they are 
exhausted by study or composition, a few whiffs will quite 
revive them, and enable them to pursue their work. 
Moderate drinkers tell us the same about wine. But we 

1 A writer in the " New York Tribune " states that five eighths 
of the cigars sold in New York as imported articles are made in 
squalid abodes in that city. The tobacco is wetted down and 
is spread on the floor over night in the rooms where the families 
eat and sleep ; and they tread on it in their domestic operations. 
In the morning, while it is yet damp and soiled, it is stripped from 
the stems by the children. This is not pleasant information for 
the smokers, but our pity is due to the children who have to live 
and work in the poisoned atmosphere. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 49 

fear our foes when they bring us gifts ; one is suspicious 
of the benefits said to be conferred by alcoholic or nar- 
cotic poisons. They silence the warnings of exhausted 
nature. Even if the person under their influence seems 
to be highly exalted or delightfully composed, we want to 
know what the reaction will be. Those who rely on smoke 
find in time that they cannot do without smoke \ and they 
may perhaps experience the truth of what was said by the 
famous Abernethy, that it stupefies all the "senses and 
all the faculties, by slow but enduring intoxication, into 
dull obliviousness." 

Its bad effects are most obvious in the young. In 
1855, 102 of the pupils in the Polytechnic School in Paris 
smoked, and 58 did not; yet of the 20 who stood highest 
in the examinations, there were only six smokers and four- 
teen non-smokers. Similar experiences led the Minister of 
Public Instruction, in i860, to issue " a circular addressed 
to the directors of the colleges and schools throughout the 
empire, forbidding the use of tobacco and cigars to stu- 
dents ; giving as a reason that ' the physical as well as the 
intellectual development of many youths has been checked 
by the immoderate use of tobacco/ " * It has been lately 
reported 2 that " the experiment of permitting the naval 
cadets to smoke at the Naval Educational Establishment 
of the United States, at Annapolis, having been fairly tried 
for three years, has been found injurious to their health, 
discipline, and power of study. The medical officers 
of the Academy and the Academic Board therefore 
urge, in the strongest terms, that this permission be re- 
voked/ ' These are important testimonies ; but i?ien who 

1 "May Young England Smoke ? " p. 19. 

2 " Monthly Letters," p. 265. 

4 



/• 



50 A LECTURE OAT TOBACCO. 

indulge in the weed must not expect boys to abstain 
from it. 

Let us now inquire whether the wealth of the country 
is increased by the use of tobacco ; because we do not 
regard health as everything. In this town, as in most 
others, there are occupations which shorten life, but 
which seem to be necessary. Men must get a living — 
though it is sad if they get a dying instead. In these 
cases we advise delicate persons to take to other employ- 
ments, even at lower wages ; and we urge manufacturers 
to adopt plans to make the work more .healthful, but we 
do not wish it stopped. Now is the nation the richer for 
tobacco? The government seems to be — it gets more 
than eight millions a year by it; but the gain to the 
exchequer may be a far greater loss to the people. Its 
income from beer, wine, and spirits is more than three 
times as much ; but no one now doubts that the nation 
would be far richer if it spent its money more wisely. 
Government is to secure good order, and it cannot really 
benefit by that which promotes disorder or idleness ; 
though as long as these practices continue, it is fair that 
they should be restrained by taxation. As to the growth 
of tobacco, since it is not permitted at home, 1 whatever 
profit comes from it goes to the foreigner. The tobacco 
consumed in the United Kingdom in 1880 was 49,323,- 
769 lbs. or 1 lb. 6y 2 oz. a head 2 — men, women, and chil- 
dren, smokers and non-smokers. The duty on a pound 

1 It is prohibited by statutes. Quantities not exceeding half a 
pole in extent may, however, be grown in gardens, for scientific 
use. — " Monthly Letters," p. 204 

2 See the " Twenty-fourth Report of the Commissioners of Her 
Majesty's Inland Revenue, for the year ending 31st March, 1881," 
Appendix, p. xxv. In 1841 the consumption was 23,096,281 lbs., 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 5 I 

of common tobacco is 3s. 6d. The original cost when 
imported is about 6d., making four shillings, — but this is 
the retail price of the common sort, apparently leaving 
no profit to the manufacturers and venders ; but the 
weight is greatly increased in the process of manufacture. 1 
Taking this into account, and also the great quantity 
smuggled, it is supposed that 75,000,000 lbs. are sold, 
making 2 lbs. 2 oz. on an average ; and reckoning the 
cost of cigars and the more expensive tobaccos, pipes, 
meerchaums, &c, 10s. a head will be under the mark. 
This would make for Bridport about ^3,400 a year. 
Even if we said ^"1,000, it would be a very large sum for 
a town which is complaining of its poverty, and where 
there is such a difficulty in raising ^300 a year for educa- 
tion. Smoking is by no means so expensive a habit as 
drinking, but it wastes a great deal of money as well as 

or 13^ oz. per head. The maximum was in 1877, before the in- 
crease of the duty, viz., 50,775,032 lbs., or 1 lb. 8 oz. per head. 
From the Customs' Returns in 1880-81 it appears that there were 
imported 47,968,448 lbs. of unmanufactured tobacco at 3s. 6d. a 
pound duty ; manufactured tobacco (including " home " in bond), 
at 4s. 4d. to 4s. iod. duty, 156,951 lbs ; cigars, at 5s. 6d., 1,122,325 
lbs.; snuff, at 4s. id. to 4s. iod., 310 lbs.; free for agricultural 
purposes, 75,154 lbs. ; total, 49,323,188 lbs. 426,856 lbs. were ad- 
mitted free for manufacture in bond ; while 2>7S^^7 ^° s - °£ snu ff an d 
103, 785 lbs. of manufactured tobacco were exported on drawback. 
1 The "Journal of the Statistical Society" (September, 1872) 
reckoned the increase at 58 per cent. (" Narcotism," No. 36.) If 
33 per cent, is reckoned for moistening, 25 per cent, is added for 
adulteration (" Narcotism," No. 26). The Inland Revenue Report 
(Appendix, p. xxiv.) states that in 1879, out °f 2 ?6 samples exam- 
ined, 136 were adulterated ; in 1880, out of 148 examined, only 
^ were adulterated ; these were mostly smuggled. In only one 
manufactory was there any evidence of adulteration. The leaf is 
twopence or threepence below its normal price. 



52 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

of time. Those who smoke tenpenny or even sixpenny- 
cigars, would soon dispose of ios. 6d. a week, or ^27 6s. 
a year ; but the few pence weekly spent by very mode- 
rate smokers among working-men, is often more than 
they can afford. As for that, many spend on food more 
than they know how to afford; but food brings them a 
return. A well-fed man can do more work than an ill-fed 
one ; while a smoking man does not do more work than a 
non-smoker. On the contrary, the smoker is apt to lose 
time ; the narcotic makes him take things too easily ; 
and the tendency of smoking is, more or less, to paralyze 
his faculties, and to shorten his working life. 

It may be said that the money is not lost ; the seven- 
teen millions are not flung into the sea. About half goes 
to the government ; the rest is divided among the growers, 
the importers, the adulteraters, and the venders. As to 
the workmen, the employment is unwholesome, and a 
much larger share would go to them if the money was 
spent on other manufactured articles. If the sale ceased, 
the tobacco-buyers would either buy something else, or 
pay their debts, or save for bad times ; so that the coun- 
try would be as prosperous — more so ; as much money 
would circulate, and more would be produced ; because 
nothing comes of tobacco but smoke and ashes and nox- 
ious gases. 

Tobacco not only hinders a great deal of productive 
labor, but it is indirectly destructive of property. It is 
impossible to compute the fires caused by smoking — fires 
in bedrooms, workshops, warehouses, stables, barns, ricks, 
churches, ships, and mines — from the hot ashes of the 
pipe or cigar, or from the matches used for lighting 
them. Dr. Ritchie, after stating that in i860 53 fires 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 53 

occurred in London alone from smoking, adds : " I have 
more than once seen a carpenter, under a London station, 
stop his work, light his pipe, and cast the half- burnt match 
among the shavings." In 1869 pipes and lucifers were 
taken from the pockets of 58 workmen in one day, 
as they were entering powder-works at Hounslow. 
Many explosions of gunpowder have this cause. Last 
July the government powder-magazine at Mazatlan, Mex- 
ico, was blown up, with many houses round it, and over 
seventy lives were lost through the carelessness of a sol- 
dier who dropped his lighted cigar. 1 Cases have fre- 
quently been brought before the magistrates, of miners who 
have incurred fines or imprisonment through taking their 
pipes and matches with them into dangerous coalpits. At 
the Blantyre explosion (July, 1879), which resulted in the 
death of 28 persons, the Inspector of Mines reported 
that, near the bodies, pipes had been found, with tobacco 
partly smoked, and lucifer matches. 2 This is but one 
instance among many. Those who work in constant peril 
are too apt to become reckless ; but the indolent careless- 
ness, which is considered one of the charms of smoking, 
greatly enhances the danger. Offenders have sometimes 
pleaded that they were not even aware that they were 
smoking, so unconscious were they of what is habitual. 

We shall next consider whether the use of tobacco pro- 
motes or hinders freedom. Freedom is very dear to 
Britons, who not only boast that they " never will be 
slaves," but also that — 

" Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free.*' 

But this free air is something different from smoke. For 
1 " Monthly Letters," p. 272. 2 "Monthly Letters," pp. 162, 193. 



54 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO, 

every man to do as he likes is not freedom, — nor anything 
else, for it is an impossibility. Lawlessness and anarchy 
are not freedom ; and for the strong to oppress the weak 
is tyranny. Freedom co-exists with the observance of 
laws, written or unwritten, which do wrong to none, and 
which promote " the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber." If any one compels another to do that which he is 
not lawfully bound to do, he so far robs him of his free- 
dom. When, in the old drinking days, a host would lock 
the door, and tell his guests that no one should leave the 
room till all his wine was drunk, that was a tyrannical as 
well as a disgusting usage. When bullying workmen have 
forced their comrades to drink, that was tyrannical. Is it 
a less tyranny when we are compelled to smoke ? The 
Temperance movement has secured liberty for those who 
have moral courage to assert it, when they do not choose 
to drink intoxicants. If an abstainer is in a room with 
drinkers, he may disapprove of what they are doing, and 
if they drink to excess, he may be in danger from them ; 
but what is in their cups does not go down his throat. If 
he is in the company of tobacco-chewers, their spitting 
habits may disgust him, and perhaps imperil his clothes ; 
but he is not forced to chew. But if he is among smok- 
ers, he is compelled to be smoked, if not to smoke ; and 
even when pipes and cigars have gone out of sight, they 
may not be out of smell. The nuisance which smokers 
cause does not pass away with them. Railway carriages, 
in which they had no right, retain the stale smell which 
they have left. If an ill-mannered passenger puts his 
dirty feet on a cushion, the dirt may rub off when it is dry ; 
but who can brush out the ill odor of tobacco ? It clings 
to cloth, as those know who employ a smoking tailor, or 
whose clothes are narcotized by smoking companions. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 55 

Now if the qualities of tobacco were innocent, it might 
be questioned how far the dislike of those who think it 
disagreeable ought to be regarded. We must not forbid 
the doctors to prescribe assafaetida because of its nauseous 
smell ; gourmands would not like to be deprived of their 
high game and mouldy cheese ; nor would the lovers 
of onions consent that their ill odor should condemn 
them. It is not wise to be too squeamish. If a little 
sickness or faintness was an insuperable evil, we should 
never cross the sea or get seamen for our ships ; nor 
would medical students pass the dissecting-room. But if 
you have gone with me thus far, you will agree that those 
who object to get accustomed to tobacco-fumes have the 
right on their side ; since smoking is not such a beneficial 
custom that those who dislike it are bound to become 
parties to it. When a well-bred gentleman smokes, he 
aims to do it where it will not cause annoyance (though 
this will not be always as easy as he hopes) , and is careful 
not to sacrifice the . health and comfort of others to his 
own pleasure. No doubt there are gentlemen of high 
breeding who are not thus particular. It is said that good 
breeding considers what is due to others, — high breeding, 
what is due to one's self. Each has its uses ; both should 
be combined ; for high breeding, when it is not good, is 
apt — like high game — to be offensive ; and the high- 
bred nobleman, who is the slave of tobacco, is, in that 
respect, not above the smoker who blacks his boots. 

My opinion of the tobacco- tyranny is confirmed by a 
leading article in "The Times " of Sept. 13, 1879 : — 

" There is a reason against public smoking — perhaps, 
in effect, against all smoking — which has scarcely received 
sufficient recognition. It is the absolute indifference to 



56 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

the comfort and convenience of society at large that it is 
certain to produce. In this country there is still a 
majority who do not like smoking or its atmospheric 
products. They do not like the smell of tobacco, espe- 
cially if it be bad, which it generally is. They do not like 
having to breathe the smoke ejected from the mouth of 
the smoker who has walked past them, or perhaps is 
standing by. They do not like to enter a room and find 
that habitual smokers have been there. . . . Smokers 
monopolize far more than their share of our railway 
accommodation. Their exigency knows no limits. A 
smoker must have a compartment in which he enjoys the 
free exercise of his privilege, even if he have it all to 
himself, and a dozen people are rushing about the plat- 
form looking in vain for room, the guard's whistle already 
sounding. What is worse, he often ignores the carriage 
provided for his accommodation, and looks aggrieved if, 
after asking whether you object to smoking, you answer — 
however mildly — that you do. Tobacco is a powerful 
drug, administered through the respiratory organs — that 
is, through the atmosphere ; and as we breathe one 
another's atmosphere, as it were, in common stock, the 
smoker administers his drug to all about him, whether 
they wish it or not. Indifference or apathy with re- 
gard to the comfort of others is one of the most 
remarkable effects of tobacco. No other drug will 
produce anything like it. Neither opium nor intoxicating 
drink produces such an insensibility. They make a man 
insensible to his own true interest and his own dignity ; 
they make him foolish or violent ; but they do not put 
him into such actual antagonism to the human race 
generally as to make him do constantly, openly, and with 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 57 

pleasure, what they very much dislike and believe to be 
hurtful. The opium-eater does not compel you to eat 
opium with him ; the drunkard does not compel you to 
drink. The smoker compels you to smoke — nay, more 
— to breathe the smoke he has just discharged from his 
own mouth. It is true there is no malice in it. The 
tobacco-smoker does not wish you harm when he blows a 
cloud of nicotine into your face. . . . He does not care 
whether you are happy or miserable." 

So far "The Times." The smoker may bear "no mal- 
ice " if he has his own way ; but if you remind him that 
he is in a carriage where smoking is prohibited, he is too 
apt to show his rough side, as the records of police-courts 
prove, when those who have been insulted by him have 
had the public spirit to bring him before the magistrate. 
You may remember the old story of a traveller in a stage- 
coach, who brought home to his fellow- passenger the 
annoyance he was causing. The smoker was asked to 
refrain, but he answered that he had a right to do as he 
chose. " At the next inn the Quaker (for the Friends are 
generally the heroes in such transactions) provided him- 
self with two tallow- candles ; one of these he took with 
him lighted into the coach ; then he lit the other, and blew 
out the first. After it had cooled, he relit No. 1, and 
blew out No. 2, — and so on, till the coach was pretty well 
filled with their fumes. At last the smoker could bear it 
no longer, and asked the Friend what he meant by it. 
He was coolly met with his own reply, " I have a right 
to do as I choose ! " (After all, candle-smoke is not so 
poisonous as tobacco-smoke, and it had not passed 
through the Friend's mouth !) He had the good sense 
to take the hint and put out his pipe, and they travelled 



58 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

happily ever after, as the story-book would say. Some 
who recognize that smoking inside a coach or omnibus is 
a nuisance, suppose that it cannot be so regarded in the 
open air outside. The Manchester Corporation are not of 
this opinion, for they fine a cabman if he smokes while 
conveying a passenger. 1 The movement of the air 
often blows the smoke and ashes on those who feel any- 
thing but grateful for them, and the pleasure of travel- 
ling through beautiful scenery is completely destroyed, 
in the case of those who are made to suffer distressing 
nausea. 

The smoke-nuisance is worse on the Continent. A 
few years ago the Statistical Society of Paris reckoned the 
annual consumption of tobacco in different countries, for 
every hundred inhabitants, as follows : England, 136^ 
lbs. (the present amount is 142^ lbs.); France, 178^ 
lbs. • Germany, 330 lbs. ; Holland, 441 lbs. ; Belgium, 
551^ lbs.; &c. 2 

Abroad, they are the non-smokers who have special 
compartments in the railway carriages ; and often it is a 
great worry to secure one, as they are "few and far 
between." If you attend an open-air concert, or dine at 
a restaurant, you are liable to be smoked out. If you go 
on the verandah of a hotel to enjoy the sweet air and 
the beauty of the prospect, those who care more for the 

1 " Monthly Letters," p. 235. 

2 " Monthly Letters," p. 103 ; compare p. 195. " Whittaker's 
Almanac," p. 384, gives the consumption in England for 35 years. 
In the United States, during the year ending Midsummer, 1878, 
1,905,063,000 cigars and 25,312,433 lbs. of tobacco were consumed. 
("Monthly Letters," p. 144.) The recent census states that the 
culture of tobacco is largely on the increase; 638,841 acres (nearly 
1,000 square miles) are devoted to it. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 59 

weed than for flowers may begin to fume, and you begin 
to fret! Sometimes one is half tempted to accustom 
one's self to smoke, so as to get indifferent to it ; but it is 
not wise to be indifferent to an evil, and if the non-smoker 
suffers from nausea at the habits of others, he at all 
events retains his power of enjoying fresh and pure air. 
If a smoker could only appreciate the injury to the health 
and comfort of others which his habit causes, he would 
ask himself whether he has any more right to foul or 
poison the air they must breathe than to foul or poison 
the water they must drink. We are, in this town, taxing 
ourselves heavily for drainage — to remove, as far as 
possible, ill odors and bad gases from our houses and 
streets ; yet hundreds are taxing themselves still more 
heavily to supply our streets and houses with nicotine 
and carbonic acid. 

The steadfast resistance to the drink-tyranny won im- 
portant concessions to abstainers. The value of pure 
water has been recognized, and colossal enterprises have 
been undertaken to provide it. Many social meetings, at 
which intoxicants used to appear as a matter of course, 
are now enjoyed without them. It is the reverse as 
regards smoking ; it has claimed, first toleration, and then 
dominion, where, till of late years, it never ventured to 
intrude ; it drives away many from places and companies 
where they have a right, and where they used to find a 
welcome ; or if they sacrifice their disgust for the sake of 
social intercourse, they may have good reason to rue 
their complaisance. 1 

1 No doubt many non-smokers, including ladies, are compara- 
tively indifferent to inhaling a moderate amount of smoke ; it is no 
less the case that others are made more or less ill by it. 



6o A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

Those who feel indignant at being robbed of their 
right to enjoy the fresh air, and to meet their friends 
without being drugged, ought in charity to remember 
that these spoilers of their liberty have often lost their 
own. Smokers who have been enslaved in childhood, 
and learnt to smoke before they were of an age to reason, 
are objects of pity. Great is the power of habit — of 
this we are glad when reason approves a habit; but, 
unhappily, unreasonable habits are the most difficult to 
change. It is no longer thought impossible to reform a 
drunkard. But we are assured that it is easier to give up 
alcoholics than tobacco or opium ; the slavery is more 
incessant and complete. No one can be constantly 
drinking ; but persistent smokers inhale their nicotine all 
day long, and its enervating influence takes away the 
desire, and almost the power, to be free. It is pitiable, 
the degradation to which the slave of tobacco is reduced ; 
he declares that he is not half himself unless under its 
influence. Except in the case of the drunkard who reels 
along the streets, the slave to drink may not be publicly 
exposed ; but the smoker, who can go nowhere without 
his pipe or cigar, bears about him the outward and visible 
sign of his bondage. 

As regards our last topic — the influence of tobacco on 
morality — we have shown that no inveterate smokers ob- 
serve the Golden Rule, " Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do unto you, do ye even so to them." They not 
only ignore the laws of courtesy, but defy the regulations 
of public companies. In spite of notices at railway sta- 
tions and elsewhere, they disgust you with their pipes ; 
and, as we have stated, they are reckless of human life, 
breaking the laws which forbid these practices in mines 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 6 1 

and other dangerous places. This lawlessness does not 
stop here. Those who fancy that tobacco is necessary to 
them — even boys who have got to like it — have not 
hesitated to sneak and tell falsehoods, if they cannot else 
indulge in it ; to swindle, peculate, and steal, that they 
may obtain it. There may be cases in which a smoker 
may suppose that he has gained valuable introductions by 
his habit, but the rule is the reverse. Horace Greeley 
remarked : " I do not say that every smoker or chewer 
is necessarily a blackguard, however steep the proclivity 
that way ; but show me a genuine blackguard who is not 
a lover of tobacco in some way, and I will show you two 
white blackbirds." Ruffians, wife-beaters, and murderers 
have soothed themselves after their crimes, with the pipe, 
and when imprisoned have raved — not at the ignominy, 
but at being deprived of tobacco. 2 

Some smokers among my audience may think this very 

1 "The Daily News" (November 12) reported that some boys 
from a Ramsgate boarding-school came over to Canterbury to play 
football with the King's School : several of them visited tobacco- 
nists' shops, and two boys of sixteen were noticed to have in their 
pockets pipes and cigarettes, which they had not paid for. They were 
brought before the police-court, when they pleaded guilty, and 
were let off with fines of ^5 each and costs. We wonder what 
had been the influence of parents and tutors on these poor de- 
graded lads. The superintendent of the Reform School at West- 
boro', Mass. (the first established in America), states that all the 
boys committed there have been users of tobacco; and it is the 
one thing that gives him most trouble — that he is working hardest 
to extirpate. 

2 In a recent article in " The Daily Telegraph " on " Life at 
Portland Convict Prison," the writer gives some striking illustra- 
tions of the fascination which tobacco has for convicts of every 
degree, who will risk " eighteen lashes with the cat " to obtain a 
bit of it. 



62 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

exaggerated and unreal. I am glad if they feel it so, 
should this prove that they are not yet in bondage. 

As with intoxicating liquors, only a minority of those 
who use them exemplify their worst evils. Perhaps there 
are other effects of which they may not be unconscious. 
Ruskin says : l " It is not easy to estimate the demoral- 
izing effect on the youth of Europe of the cigar, in en- 
abling them to pass their time happily in idleness. To- 
bacco is the worst natural curse of modern civilization." 
Englishmen are not naturally Lazzaroni ; they like either 
to do something, or to seem to do something. When 
ladies spend their leisure hours together, they have their 
fancy-work — or what they fancy is work. Men have not 
this resource, and feel it awkward to sit and do nothing ; 
unless they have some exciting theme they may not be 
ready to talk ; when they smoke they feel at their ease, 
for they are doing that which gives them no trouble. But 
indolence, when it takes the guise of occupation, is 
doubly ensnaring. No one, however, will accuse Carlyle 
of indolence, and after his wife's death " he lauded tobac- 
co" (to Mr. W. Maccall, a writer in " The Tobacco Plant ") 
" as one of the divinest benefits that had ever come to 
the human race, . . . when social, political, religious 
anarchy, and every imaginable plague, made the earth un- 
speakably miserable." But those of healthful mind do not 
find " the earth unspeakably miserable," and in his soberer 
mood he thus describes the influences of tobacco : " Gen- 
erally bad ; pacificatory, but bad ; engaging you in idle 
cloudy dreams ; still worse, . . . soothing all things 
into lazy peace, that all things may be left to themselves 

1 " The Queen of the Air," p. 91. See "Monthly Letters," pp. 

190, 235. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 6$ 

very much, and to the laws of gravity and decomposi- 
tion." 1 It is dangerous, as well as lazy, to say, " ' Peace, 
peace/ when there is no peace." It is this which has 
helped the downfall of those Mohammedan countries 
which have escaped the crimes resulting from strong 
drink. The use of narcotics has increased their indo- 
lence, irresolution, and tendency to leave " all things to 
themselves, very much." "What can't be cured must be 
endured ; " but tobacco helps men to endure that which 
demands a cure, till at length the cure is out of reach, 
and endurance fails. Certainly the smoker puts the en- 
durance of others to the test. We have often not only 
to imbibe his smoke, but to bear his burdens. Rate- 
payers may well complain of those who are paupers 
through their own fault. Men are not ashamed to keep 
their children from school, on the plea that they cannot 
afford twopence or fourpence a week, while they spend 
sixpence on tobacco ; they care more for their pipe 
than for their children ; and if some good-natured person 
pays for their schooling, he has the pleasure of reflecting 
that in reality he is paying for their father's pipe. We 
may well pity a hard-working man, with a load of cares 
which he longs to forget, if he seeks some oblivion in his 
pipe (only we know that the cloud of smoke, like the sand 
in which the terrified ostrich hides her head, gives no 
escape from the dangers it conceals) ; but one's pity is 
mingled with another feeling when we see young fellows 
wasting in smoke the money they ought to save for their 
start in life, wasting the time in which they might store 
their minds with useful knowledge, becoming idle dreamers 

1 " Monthly Letters," p. 186. 



64 A LECTURE ON TOBACCOS 

instead of robust thinkers. 1 They form indolent and ex- 
pensive habits, and then expect their purses to be filled 
by those who have shown more self-denial and more self- 
respect. 

Moderate smoking, like moderate drinking, too often 
leads on to what is obviously hurtful. Temperance con- 
sists in keeping to the rule which reason approves ; where 
reason demands abstinence, any indulgence is intempe- 
rate. As wine or beer is to spirits, so is tobacco to opium. 
The use of the one may prepare the way for the other. 2 
Those who seem to have exhausted the relief to be 
gained from smoking, often addict themselves to morphine 
or to chloral. These anaesthetics are becoming danger- 
ously common ; we are continually hearing of their fatal 
effects ; and when women resort to them, whom the cus- 
toms of society debar from tobacco, they can often plead 
that their husbands and brothers justify the use of narco- 
tics by their example. 

And now what is to be done ? Some may say : " Do 
nothing ; what is the use ? The more foolish you show 
a practice to be, the more attractive will it be to fools. 
There have been laws against tobacco ; a royal ' Counter- 
blast ' against it ; the remonstrances of divines, physicians, 
and shrewd men of the world against it; and yet the 
habit is increasing ! " But many have formed it without 

1 Sir David Brewster, in his " Life of Sir Isaac Newton " (vol. 
ii. p. 410), records that the great philosopher, "when he was asked 
to take snuff or tobacco, declined, remarking that he would make 
no necessities to himself." 

2 In 1843, 47>ooo lbs. of opium were used in England; the an- 
nual import is said to have now reached about 400,000 lbs. In the 
United States the Custom House returns were about 250,000 lbs. 
in 1877; and, in 1880, 516,600 lbs. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 6$ 

having been warned against it ; and something may be done 
to induce men of courage and principle to give it up, 
if they are convinced that it is injurious, and to check 
its inroads among the young. In doing so we shall have 
the sympathy of many smokers ; for as publicans dislike 
disreputable, impoverished drunkards, so the patrons 
of tobacco are disgusted with its victims. The journal 
of that trade — " Cope's Tobacco Plant " — says : " Few 
things could be more pernicious to boys, growing youths, 
and persons of unformed constitution, than the use of 
tobacco in any of its forms." Sir Benjamin Brodie, after 
detailing in "The Lancet" some of the ill effects of to- 
bacco, adds : " Boys get the habit of smoking, because 
they think it manly and fashionable to do so, — not unfre- 
quently because they have the example set them by their 
tutors, and partly because there is no friendly voice to warn 
them, as to the special ill consequences to which it may 
give rise, when the process of growth is not yet com- 
pleted. " Teachers, who would prepare the young to be 
manly men, must warn them, both by precept and ex- 
ample, against this enfeebling and enslaving practice. In 
this matter parents should themselves be teachers. In the 
choice of companions for their sons, and in the selection 
of a school, they should not only consider social and intel- 
lectual advantages, but whether those habits are counte- 
nanced which may be very injurious to their physical and 
moral well-being. 

But if from carelessness or despair, or from a dislike to 
attack habits to which valued friends may be addicted, we 
make no protest, and become like the smokers, " soothed 
into lazy peace," what may happen? Women are now 
asserting their claims to do what men do. We are told 

5 



66 A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

that, owing to the facilities afforded by some grocers and 
confectioners, they drink much more than they did. Do 
we wish them to smoke ? Those who are living in .an 
atmosphere narcotized by their male relatives will not find 
it difficult. In the North you often see poor women with 
a pipe. If it is so very soothing, their nerves need com- 
posing as much as those of men ; and a careworn wife, 
whose work is never done, may want the comfort as much 
as a working-man. Then if the boys smoke, why not 
the girls 1 and little children, just as they are taught by 
the drinkers to drink? Women smoke opium in China, 
and tobacco in Russia, Spanish America, and elsewhere. 
In New Zealand the Maori woman clings to her pipe and 
weed. Among savages in Siberia " tobacco is their first 
and greatest luxury; women and children all smoke, 
the latter learning the accomplishment as soon as they are 
able to toddle. 2 In Burmah they smoke in their mother's 
arms. 3 Is this what we want, or are content to drift to ? 
This is what we may come to if we make no opposing 
effort. Much will depend on women themselves ; many 
have been accustomed to tolerate smoking, and even pro- 
fess to like it, when it gives pleasure to those whom they 
like. A poor woman would be blamed if, by her objection 
to the pipe, she drove her husband to the public-house ; 
but this should not be the alternative. Smokers are yet 
to be found who find more delight in a cheerful, kindly 

1 " The Daily News," of January n, describes the abandoned 
girls, many of them very young, who frequent the Rogues' Walk 
after midnight, each with a " manly cigar " in her mouth ; " the last 
drain of ardent spirits and the fumes of tobacco seem to have com- 
pletely taken away from them the last vestige of shame." 

2 " Monthly Letters," p. 191. 8 " Narcotism," No. 46. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO, 67 

home than in a pipe. If it is a mere question of pleasure, 
he or she is most to be commended who gives up to the 
other. But when the serious results of smoking are better 
understood, true affection will do its utmost to avert them. 
We all recognize the influence of women on social cus- 
toms ; when they heartily believe that this is hurtful, and 
even dangerous, as well as of ill-odor, their influence will 
be strong to discountenance it. 

The deliberate opinion of the medical profession will 
sustain our efforts, whatever may be the habits of some of 
its members. It is said that, as regards intoxicants, they 
have been too apt to consider the pleasure of their patients, 
and to prescribe that which may lessen a passing evil 
without regard to subsequent dangers ; but of tobacco, 
they will usually say that it is safest to abstain from it. 

In my youth there was no scruple as to moderate drink- 
ing, and a pipe was considered a suitable appendage to a 
minister's study. Now there are many who protest against 
both, and some American Conferences refuse to license, 
as preachers, those who take the license of the weed. 1 
Religious men, who have been taught to flee from idolatry, 
have been conscience-stricken when it was brought home 
to them that the pipe was their idol, asserting its claims 
over those of social duty and Divine service. If those 
who are not conscious of this idolatry, but who own the 
obligations of religion and morality, would look on smok- 
ing-customs, not on their playful or social side, but with 
due regard to their unsocial tyranny, and the serious evils 
attending them, they would more frequently make it a 
matter of conscience to abstain from them, and to induce 
others to do the same. If they feel that this would in- 
1 " Narcotism," No. 25; "Monthly Letters," p. 190. 



68 A LECTURE 017 TOBACCO. 

volve much self-sacrifice on their part, they may learn 
that they are themselves under bondage. 

The Temperance movement in England has not been 
strong enough to counteract the effect of increased means 
of indulgence ; more is drunk now than when it com- 
menced ; yet it has saved hundreds of thousands, and has 
done much to enlighten public opinion, to weaken bad 
customs, and to influence the conduct of those who wish 
to live reasonably. To be consistent, it should resist that 
which intoxicates, 1 whether it be chewed or drunk, whether 
smoked or snuffed. That smoking checks drinking is a 
delusion. It has been found, in districts where investiga- 
tions have been made as to those who have broken their 
Temperance pledges, that most of them were smokers. 2 
Since all wise persons wish to keep the young from the 
habit, it has become not unusual to forbid tobacco to 
members of Bands of Hope ; 3 it is also prohibited in Juve- 
nile Temples. So far, so good ; but if a boy is told that 
he must not smoke till he is sixteen, is it not in boy-nature 
that he should look forward to it as a manly privilege — 
unless he remembers the babies in Burmah? 

It is satisfactory to find that shopkeepers are question- 
ing whether they ought to deal in what they regard as 
unwholesome and demoralizing. A tract, entitled " Con- 

1 Tobacco-smoking was in old times called tobacco-drinking. 
Persons are sometimes " smoke-drunk." See " Monthly Letters," 
p. 264. 

2 " May Young England smoke ?" p. 21, second edition. 

8 "The Band of Hope Chronicle " for 1880 and 1881, has con- 
tained a quarterly " Outline Address " for Bands of Hope, on 
u Tobacco, and its Effects ; " a similar series will appear this year. 
It is very important to give the young good reasons for not form- 
ing bad habits. 



A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 69 

science in Business " gives many such instances. Some 
were wakened to the evil after selling to little boys. One 
reports that, though he has turned hundreds of tobacco- 
customers away, his business has improved ; another, 
whose returns from tobacco were ^"100 a week, sent a 
circular to his customers that he could sell it no longer. 
There is an abstainer in Bridport who has given up the 
sale. David would not offer to God of that which cost 
him nothing, 1 and our religious convictions demand sacri- 
fices as well as offerings ! 

We must not underrate the difficulties attending this 
reform. It is no easy thing for those who are enthralled 
by tobacco to give up its use. When this is compulsory, 
as in gaols, or when they have been almost compelled to 
do it by their doctors, after the first weeks of misery are 
over they have generally found their health improved. 
But the conflict with habit is always hard. Let them re- 
member the penalties of defeat and the glory of victory. 
He that ruleth himself is "better than the mighty; " and 
though tobacco is but a weed, he who can trample on it 
may prove a hero. Never despair ! " We are saved by 
hope.'' In the midst of craving and suffering, he who 
has resolved to maintain his manhood may look forward 
to the time when his health and spirits will improve ; when 
he will not be a nuisance to others, nor waste his best sub- 
stance in a folly. We who have never been -brought under 
this bondage have, on our part, to encourage those who 
would be free, to be patient with the irritability and ill- 
temper which sometimes attends the effort ; and to show 
that good-fellowship and good-nature and cheerful enjoy- 
ment are most natural to those who do not allow them- 
1 2 Samuel xxiv. 24. 



yo A LECTURE ON TOBACCO. 

selves in that which they condemn. May those who root 
out the weed enjoy the flowers and gather the fruit ! 
They shall " have beauty for ashes/' the sweet breath of 
day and the pure light, instead of poisonous vapor and 
clouds of smoke. 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

By G. F. WITTER, M. D. 



A REPORT TO THE WISCONSIN BOARD OF HEALTH, 
FOR THE YEAR 1881. 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



<£®<o 



T N this age it becomes more and more the aim of the 
■*■ sanitarian to search out the avoidable causes of sick- 
ness, and to admonish the people to order their lives in 
accordance with Nature's laws, and thus avoid many evils 
that otherwise they must endure. The medical profession 
has had much to do in relieving the suffering in the world 
that has been due to accident or indiscretion ; but it has 
not hitherto taken that interest in discovering and endeav- 
oring to remove the causes of ill-health which will be the 
foundation of a large part of the medical science of the 
immediate future. 

It is not difficult to see that there are at present many 
vast and wholly unexplored fields in the province of pre- 
ventive medicine. Public hygiene is yet in its infancy. 
Certain forces are at work producing illness, and a huge 
amount of drugs is used to counteract the evil tendencies 
thus engendered ; while no sufficient attention is given to 
the causes that have occasioned the sickness, the removal 
of which would restore health, with little or no medicine. 
We study fully the symptoms and effects of disease, but we 
have not as yet investigated its sources with anything like 



74 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

the same thoroughness. The communicable diseases, as 
scarlet-fever, measles, diphtheria, yellow-fever, &c., we 
know by their manifestations ; but no one has yet made 
us fully acquainted with the methods by which they invade 
the human system. Some may have undertaken to ex- 
plain their mysteries, but nothing more has been accom- 
plished than to show how the body may at times be 
prepared for the invasions of disease, as the ground is pre- 
pared by ploughing and harrowing for the reception of 
the seed. We do not yet know whether a given disease 
is developed from germs, from invisible and indefinable 
miasma, or through tendencies inherent in the individual, 
or whether it is partly or wholly due to long- continued 
habits of abuse. 

Impressed with the ideas that a very large proportion of 
the suffering in the world has been brought about by igno- 
rance, not only among the wholly uneducated, but also 
among those possessing — or at any rate claiming the 
possession of — a higher degree of cultivation, a larger 
amount of knowledge, and that many diseases, the origin 
of which is regarded as obscure and mysterious, are really 
often due to the bad habits of the individual, we propose 
in the following pages to discuss the effects of one habit 
which we consider a bad one, *. e. the use of tobacco and 
its influence on health. 

It is well known that tobacco is used in every conceiv- 
able dose, from the most heroic to the infinitesimal ; in 
every nation and in all ranks of society its sway is estab- 
lished ; the gray-haired patriarch is not too old, nor is the 
boy of ten too young to be its willing subject \ alike in the 
filthiest slums and byways, and in the promenades and 
avenues where the highest fashion and the most polite 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. ?$ 

society are found, it is present. It sits in our legislative 
halls, both State and National ; it travels by every convey- 
ance, on land and water. The offices of the lawyer and 
physician and the sanctum of the clergyman are alike 
under its cloud. The coarse and blustering, and the ele- 
gant, refined, and scholarly are equally its victims. To- 
bacco's insidious spell has fallen upon the world, and the 
pipe, the cigar, and the snuff-box are a common solace 
among all ranks and conditions of men. 

" One of the most remarkable circumstances connected 
with the history of tobacco is the rapidity with which its 
growth has spread and its consumption increased." The 
enormous extent to which its use has attained in Great 
Britain and other countries is briefly shown in the follow- 
ing figures : — 

In Great Britain the total consumption has been : — 

" 1857 . . 32,856,913 lbs. 

"1867 40,720,767 " 

" l8 75 49,951,830 « 

" 1880 50,000,000 " 

" France the amount entered for consumption 

in 1880 was 45,000,000 " 

" Austria, during the same year 81,000,000 " 

" Russia, " " " " 25,000,000 " 

The extent to which its use has increased in our own 
country may be judged with tolerable accuracy by a com- 
parison of the census-returns, given herewith, which show 
the tobacco-production of the States and Territories for 
the census years 1870 and 1880, the increase being 
210,372,232 lbs. during the decade, or rather more than 
eighty per cent. These figures become more significant 
when it is known that the crop of 1880 was only a medium 



7 6 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



crop, and not at all in excess of the present requirements 
for home-consumption and exportation. 

" Fifteen States produce now, as in 1870, more than 
ninety per cent of the tobacco of the United States ; of 
these fifteen, only Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Massa- 
chusetts produce less than in 1870. Kentucky occupies 
the first position, producing thirty-six per cent of the 
total amount; Virginia holds the second place, raising 
80,099,838 lbs. against 60,000 lbs. in 1862; Pennsyl- 
vania has advanced from the twelfth place to the third, 
Wisconsin from the fifteenth to the tenth, and North Caro- 
lina, Connecticut, and New York have each gained one 
point, making North Carolina sixth, Connecticut eighth, 
and New York twelfth in the rank of tobacco States. The 
changes of the decade may appear more clearly in the 
following statement : — 



A Comparative Statement, showing the Tobacco Product 
of the States and Territories for the census-years 
1880 and 1870, with the acreage of 1880. 



States and Territories. 


1880. 


1870. 


Acreage. 


Pounds. 


Pounds. 


Total 

Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 


637,659 


473.107,573 


262,735,341 


2,198 

I 

2,064 

84 


45^556 

600 

970,220 

73,3 l 7 


152,742 

IOO 

594,886 

63,809 

890 

8,328,798 

250 
157,405 


Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia . . 
Florida 


8,666 

7 
5 

2 
102 


14,044,652 
2,107 

T >353 

1,400 

22,197 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



77 



Comparative Statement, Continued. 



States and Territories. 



Georgia ...... 

Idaho . . . . . . 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts . . . 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi . . . . 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire . . . 
New Jersey . . . . 
New Mexico . . . . 

New York 

North Carolina . . . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania . . . . 
Rhode Island . . . . 
South Carolina . . . 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington Territory . 
West Virginia . . . 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



1880. 



Acreage. 



1,057 

2 
5,625 

11,955 
694 

334 

226,127 

264 

3 

3 8 ,i74 

3,353- 

167 

1,475 

i5o°° 



106 



154 

10 

4,93S 

57,2i5 

34,679 

46 

27,5 6 7 

,4 

4i,53 2 

702 



83 

139,423 

9 

• 4,071 

8,811 



Pounds. 



231,198 

400 

3,936,700 

8,872,842 

420,722 

191,749 

171,121,134 

5 6 ,564 

, o 35 ° 

26,082,147 

5,369,436 

84,333 

70,389 

415,248 

11,994,077 



58,589 

1,500 

170,843 

171,405 

1,249 

6,553,351 

26,986,448 

34,725,405 

17,860 

36,957,772 

925 

46,144 

29,365,052 

222,398 



131,422 

80,099,838 

7,072 

2,296,146 

10,878,463 



1870. 



Pounds. 



288,596 

5,249, 2 74 

9,325,392 

7I,79 2 

33> 2 4i 

105,305,869 

1 5,54i 

15 

15,785,339 

7,312,885 

5,385 

8,247 

61,012 

12,320,483 

600 

5,988 

25 

155,334 

40,871 

8,587 

2,349,798 

11,150,087 

18,741,973 

3,847 

3,467,539 

796 

34,805 

21,465,452 

59,706 



72,671 

37,086,364 

i,6S2 

2,046,452 

960,813 



78 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS, 

Thus it will be seen that the amount of money expended 
and changing hands for tobacco, in this country alone, is 
enormous ; allowing ten cents per pound for the raw ma- 
terial in 1880, it reached the sum of $47,310,757.30, and 
this only on the first change from the producer's into the 
manufacturer's hands, to say nothing of the added value 
given to it in the factory, and the added cost due to the 
revenue tax. What more effectual argument can be made 
by the economist than the simple presentation of these 
figures ? The official returns show that in Germany, Spain, 
Holland, Great Britain and the United States tobacco costs 
more than bread. " A single firm in New York paid to 
the government in one month in 1880, a revenue tax of 
$120,000 ! The average monthly tax paid by this house 
for Internal Revenue is over $ 1 00,000. The shipment of 
of snuff by this concern to one city in North Carolina 
amounts to one hundred pounds per month." We learn 
from the Internal Revenue Reports that more than ninety- 
five million pounds of manufactured tobacco, and one 
bilion, three hundred millions of cigars are used in the 
United States every year, at an expense of two hundred 
and fifty millions of dollars, while the revenue tax amounts 
to one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. In the city 
of New York alone, about seventy-five millions of cigars 
are annually consumed at a cost of more than nine millions 
of dollars. 

Now we do not assume that this outlay is wrong because 
it is so enormous. There is said to be no better use for 
money, as a general thing, than to " spend it as one goes 
along." This, however, is a question of spending money 
to the best advantage ; there ought to be no doubt in re- 
gard to the character of any personal indulgence which 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 79 

draws so largely upon the resources, usually moderate in 
American homes, on which the whole family depends, 
from which must come whatever its members have of edu- 
cation, recreation, &c, — in short all that gives form and 
tone to character ; and more than this, " No man is so 
rich that he has a right to spend money to his own or his 
fellow's undoing.' ' 

If, moreover, it shall become apparent on analysis that 
there is an actual food-value to tobacco, or if it prove 
a health-producing agency, or even a valuable luxury, 
the enormous tax above referred to will not appear so ap- 
palling. And this suggests a reference to the chemical 
constitution of tobacco. 

The constituents which chiefly give tobacco its peculiar 
characteristics are : an alkaloid called Nicotina ; a substance 
called Nicotianin or Tobacco-camphor, of which little is 
known (but concerning which it has been noted that upon 
the greater or less proportion of it depends the estimation 
in which a given sample of tobacco is held, the choicest 
tobaccos containing the largest percentage) ; and an 
empyreumatic oil of complex constitution. The alkaloid, 
nicotina, has the odor of tobacco, and possesses very 
poisonous qualities ; in this respect it is equal to prussic 
acid, a single drop being sufficient to kill a dog. "Its 
vapor is so irritating that it. is difficult to breathe in a room 
where a single drop has been vaporized." Nicotina 
taken internally in very minute quantity produces great 
muscular depression, occasionally convulsions, and at last 
paralysis and death. The proportion of this substance 
contained in the dry leaf of tobacco varies from two to 
seven per cent. Besides these two volatile substances 
existing in the leaf, ready formed, there is another of an 



80 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

oily nature, produced when the tobacco is distilled alone 
in a retort, and to a certain extent also when it is burned 
in a pipe ; it is acrid and disagreeable in taste, and has 
narcotic and poisonous properties. One drop applied to 
the tongue of a cat caused convulsions, followed by 
death in ten minutes. 

There are various adulterations of tobacco, especially 
in countries where high duties hold out a temptation to 
fraud. The leaves of other plants, dried and flavored 
with tobacco-extract, are frequently found in manufactured 
tobacco ; paper and hay are sometimes used, but the 
more common adulterants are said to be the leaves of 
rhubarb, dock, burdock, cabbage, &c. " It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, to meet with manufactured tobaccos 
possessing a thousand different flavors, for which the 
chemistry of the leaf can in no way account. " 

" Extensively as tobacco is used, it is remarkable how 
very few persons can state distinctly the effects which it 
produces upon them, — why they began and for what 
reason they continue the indulgence. If the reader be a 
user of tobacco, let him ask himself these questions, and 
he will probably be surprised to note how unsatisfactory 
the answers he receives will be. Indeed, few have cared 
to analyze their sensations while under its influence, — or, if 
they have analyzed them, have cared to tell truly what 
kind of enjoyment it is which they seek in its use." 

Turning to another branch of the subject, and examin- 
ing more fully the physiological effects of tobacco, we 
find that physiologists are not agreed in regard to the 
peculiar mode of its action. The nerves are considered 
by some as being probably the principal medium, but the 
cases on record where death has been produced by the 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



application of small quantities to wounds, would indicate 
that the process is more complex. The whole subject 
of the physiological action of tobacco is so complicated 
that but little is really known concerning it \ there is, it is 
said, a remarkable difference between the action of the 
alkaloid and the essential oil, the one of which possesses 
the power of paralyzing the heart's action, while the other 
has no such property. Given to a person in ordinarily 
good health but unaccustomed to its use, tobacco, either 
chewed or smoked, causes distressing sickness at the 
stomach, fulness at the head, and frequently ringing in 
the ears and giddiness, relaxation of the bowels, partial 
paralysis of the sphincter muscles, especially those of the 
large intestine, and other equally serious effects. These 
conditions are not all met with in each case, but a suf- 
ficient number is always present to startle any one who 
sees them for the first time. 

Persons of a nervous temperament have found it im- 
possible, for a long time after beginning the use of tobacco, 
to indulge in it without experiencing decidedly unpleasant 
sensations. Dr. Pereira says that " in small doses tobacco 
causes a sensation of heat in the throat, and sometimes a 
feeling of warmth in the stomach. These effects are less 
obvious when the agent is taken in liquid form and largely 
diluted. By repetition it usually acts as a diuretic, and 
less frequently as a laxative. Accompanying these effects 
are often nausea, and a peculiar feeling usually described as 
giddiness, — scarcely according, however, with the ordinary 
acceptation of that term. In larger doses it produces 
nausea, vomiting, and purging; though it seldom gives 
rise to abdominal pain, it produces a most distressing 
sensation of uneasiness at the pit of the stomach. It 

6 



82 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

occasionally acts as an anodyne, or more rarely promotes 
sleep. But its most remarkable effects are languor, ful- 
ness, relaxation of the muscles, trembling of the limbs, 
great anxiety, and tendency to faint. Vision is frequently 
obscured ; the ideas are confused, and the pulse is small 
and weak ; respiration is somewhat laborious ; the surface 
is cold and clammy, or covered with a cold sweat, and in 
extreme cases, convulsive movements are observed. In 
excessive doses the effects are of the same kind, but more 
violent in degree. The more prominent symptoms, in 
addition to those already noted, are extreme weakness and 
relaxation, depression of the vascular system (manifested 
by feeble pulse, pallor, cold sweat, and tendency to faint), 
convulsive movements followed by paralysis, and a kind 
of torpor, sometimes terminating in death." 

One would suppose that a substance producing such 
effects as those just described at the beginning of its 
use would be very soon abandoned. " Nothing, however, 
with mankind appears so attractive as a habit surrounded 
by all the attributes which lift it into the dignity of a 
fashion." 

The enormous consumption of tobacco in our country, 
heretofore mentioned, has been ascertained from the 
yearly returns of the revenue officers ; but the physical, 
mental, and moral deterioration resulting therefrom admit 
of no such tangible analysis. These, although sure, are 
slow and imperceptible in their development, and it is 
therefore impossible to estimate the amount of the injury 
which tobacco thus inflicts upon the public welfare. We 
cannot do better in this connection than quote the 
remarks of Dr. B. W. Richardson, an eminent prac- 
titioner, whose researches are taken by Chambers as the 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 83 

basis of his treatise on tobacco. Richardson declares 
" that in the confirmed smoker there is a constant func- 
tional disturbance which extends to the blood, the 
stomach, the heart, the lungs, the brain, and the nerves.' ' 
That does not leave much of the man except his hair and 
his bones. He says further that "the use of tobacco 
gives a doubtful pleasure for a certain penalty, — that so 
long as the practice is continued the smoker is out of 
health ; his stomach only partially digests ; his heart 
labors unnaturally; his blood is not fully oxygenized." 

Dr. Hassall says : " Tobacco owes its chief properties 
to the presence of two principles, both of which produce 
the worst possible effects upon the human system, when 
taken pure." Both of these active principles have been 
shown by Zeise and Milsens to be present in the smoke of 
tobacco j they are therefore not destroyed by the com- 
bustion of tobacco, whether in the form of cigars or when 
used in a pipe. They are inhaled in the act of smoking, 
and thus are taken into the lungs and stomach ; especially 
is this the case when the saliva, impregnated with smoke, 
is swallowed. That these active constituents are actually 
absorbed, and make their way into the system, is further 
proved by the sickness, giddiness and death-like faintness 
experienced by those unaccustomed to smoking; the 
difference in the effects in the case of habitual smokers 
being caused by the fact that the system becomes inured 
to the use of tobacco, and therefore grows less susceptible 
to its influence. 

Dr. Prout says : " Tobacco disorders the assimilative 
functions in general, but particularly, as I believe, the 
assimilation of the saccharine principles. I have never 
been able, indeed, to trace the development of oxalic 



84 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

acid to the use of tobacco ; but that some analogous and 
equally poisonous principle is generated in certain indi- 
viduals by its abuse, is evident from their cachectic looks, 
and from the dark, and often greenish-yellow tint of the 
blood. That severe and peculiar dyspeptic symptoms are 
sometimes produced by inveterate snuff-taking is known, 
and I have more than once seen such cases terminate 
fatally with malignant disease of the stomach and liver. 
Great smokers, also, especially those who use short pipes 
and cigars, are said to be liable to cancerous affections of 
the lips. But it happens with tobacco, as with deleterious 
articles of diet, — the strong and healthy suffer compar- 
atively little, while the weak and predisposed to disease 
fall victims to its poisonous operation. Surely, if the 
dictates of reason were allowed to prevail, an article so 
injurious to health, and so offensive in all its forms and 
modes of employment, must speedily be banished from 
common use." 

Sir Benjamin Brodie, in his " Physiological Researches," 
published in 1854, says : " We may conclude that the em- 
pyreumatic oil of tobacco occasions death by destroying 
the functions of the brain, without directly acting on the 
circulation. In other words, its effects are similar to those 
of alcohol, the juice of aconite, and the essential oil of 
almonds." This testimony might be greatly increased, 
were it necessary or desirable to add to it. 

On the other hand, the advocates and friends of tobacco 
consider it a harmless luxury, and hold that " it soothes 
irritated nerves, clears and sharpens the exhausted intel- 
lect, fills an indefinable vacancy, produces a satisfied and 
calm condition of the mind, dispels loneliness, relieves 
weariness, and induces repose." They assert that its bad 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 85 

effects are only transient, that no organic lesions are ever 
to be observed which can be certainly traced to its use. 
In answer to all of which Dr. T. F. Rumbold says : " It 
is seen that the system must be in a more or less vigorous 
condition to allow of the use of tobacco, plainly proving 
that it is a depressor of the nervous system \ it as plainly 
follows that it is while the depression process is going on, 
that the pleasurable feeling is experienced. " It does not 
soothe the nerves, until by its primary effects it has first 
irritated them ; it would of course be absurd to say that it 
soothes un-irritated nerves. It cannot clear and sharpen 
the exhausted intellect until it has first beclouded and 
dulled the intellect. It cannot fill an indefinable va- 
cancy, until it has caused this vacancy. It cannot induce 
a calm and satisfied condition of the mind, except it has 
first induced a restless and unsatisfied condition, nor can 
it induce repose until it has caused sleeplessness. Will 
the lad who has just smoked his first pipe or cigar say 
that it has soothed his nerves, cleared and sharpened his 
intellect, satisfied and calmed his mind, or induced repose ? 
Even though his nerves were irritated, his intellect dull 
and exhausted, his mind restless, and his eyes sleepless, 
has his cigar given him the least relief? What evidence 
have we, beyond the assertions of th'e users of tobacco 
whose nerves are already perverted, that the exhilaration 
of which they tell us causes any greater enjoyment of life 
than would have been experienced had tobacco never 
been known ? Is the consumer of a narcotic, who is fully 
under its influence, in a fit condition to judge whether or 
not he enjoys life better in consequence of his indulgence ? 
If his sensibilities are perverted, is not his judgment also 
perverted with respect to those sensibilities ? 



86 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS, 

There seems to be little room for doubt that tobacco 
perpetrates a most successful deception upon its users, by 
inducing them to believe that its effects are exhilarating, 
when the so-called exhilaration is in fact only the sensation 
of relief from its primary effects, and a hallucination brought 
on by the narcotic and perverting action of tobacco on 
the sympathetic nerves. Had I not used tobacco my- 
self to excess during fifteen years, I should not be able 
to speak so definitely with regard to its effects. 

The dangers and the injuries already discussed, as re- 
sulting from the use of tobacco, are manifest ; but there 
is an effect not yet mentioned, which threatens ultimately 
to produce a great national calamity — nothing less than 
a tendency to gradual enfeeblement of mind, progres- 
sive loss of intellectual power and vigor. That this is no 
chimera, known and well-proven facts will testify. 

In 1862 Napoleon III. of France had his attention 
called to the facts that there were more than five times as 
many paralytics and lunatics in the hospitals of France as 
there were in proportion to the population thirty years 
before, and that the government revenue from the tobacco 
monopoly had increased during that time in about an 
equal ratio. He appointed a commission of scientific 
men, to examine whether this were a case of cause and 
effect or only a coincidence. This commission devoted 
much time and attention to the young men in the govern- 
ment training-schools, dividing the students into two 
classes — the smokers and the non-smokers. The latter 
were found so much superior physically, mentally, and 
morally, that the Emperor at once prohibited the use of 
tobacco by students in all the schools under govern- 
mental supervision throughout the country. 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 87 

But we are not compelled to consult the statistics of 
Europe in order to present examples of this kind. 

Probably as conclusive evidence as the most exacting 
can demand, in regard to the effects of smoking upon the 
constitution of the young, and even the most vigorous 
among the young, is to be found in the testimony given 
by the action of the authorities of the United States Naval 
School at Annapolis, and those of the Military Academy at 
West Point. It is well known that only lads who are close 
approximations to physical perfection can pass the rigor- 
ous examination to which all candidates for admission are 
subjected at these institutions ; if such boys as are there 
to be seen cannot endure the strain which tobacco puts 
upon them, it is fair to ask, who can ? Yet, after a full 
trial of the experiment, extending over the period of 
three years, we find Dr. Gihon, Medical Director of the 
United States Navy, using the following language in 
regard to the use of tobacco at the Naval School : — 

" I have urged upon the superintendent, as my last official utter- 
ance before leaving this institution, the fact — of the truth of which 
five years' experience as health-officer of this station has satisfied 
me — that, beyond air other things, the future health and usefulness 
of the lads educated at this school require the actual interdiction of 
tobacco. In this opinion I have been sustained, not only by all my 
colleagues, but by all other sanitarians, in military and civil life, 
whose views I have been able to learn, while I know it to be the 
belief of the officer who is to succeed me in the charge of this de- 
partment, and who was one of the board of medical officers which in 
1875 reported ' that the regulations against the use of tobacco in any 
form cannot be made too stringent. , Since three successive annual 
boards of visitors have indorsed the prohibition of tobacco as a 
'wise sanitary provision,' and the last of these boards, on being 
informed that the regulation against its use was not then in opera- 
tion (June 10, 1879), emphatically recommended that 'its strict 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 



enforcement be at once restored.' . . . An agent . . . that is act- 
ually capable of such potent evil, . . . which determines func- 
tional disease of the heart, which impairs vision, blunts the 
memory, and interferes with mental effort and application, ought, 
in my opinion as a sanitary officer, at whatever cost of vigilance, 
to be rigorously interdicted. . . . The difficulty of restraining 
smoking should be no more valid excuse for its tolerance, in the 
face of sanitary objections of such magnitude, than for the tolera- 
tion of ' frenching or gouging or hazing.' The use of stimulating 
liquors is forbidden, but that the regulation prohibiting it is evaded 
is shown by the empty whiskey bottles which are picked up outside 
the cadets' quarters ; but it is not proposed to allow drinking on 
this account, although, as a sanitary fact, a half-pint of table claret 
or of beer would be a wiser indulgence than a cigar, or the in- 
numerable cigarettes, — which latter, there is good reason to be- 
lieve, cause injury to the health from other agents than the mere 
tobacco which they may contain. 

" I have dwelt at such length on this topic, feeling assured that 
I shall have done no act of greater good to this school, in the suc- 
cess of which I have so profound an interest, than if I can succeed 
in saving its pupils from the impairment of health which is sure to 
result from the unrestrained premature use of tobacco." 

We doubt not that many a parent in this broad land 
thanked Dr. Gihon, from his inmost heart, for the exhibit 
of the evils following on the use of tobacco by growing 
boys, however robust, made in the paper from which the 
above extracts are quoted. And Rear-Admirai Rodgers 
deserved their gratitude no less when he issued the follow- 
ing order, which explains itself : — 

" U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.> June 14, 1881. 
" Order No. 1. 

" The experiment of permitting the Naval Cadets to smoke at 
the Naval Academy, having been fairly tried for nearly three years, 
has been found injurious to their health, discipline, and powers of 
study. 

" The Medical Officers of the Academy, and the Academic Board, 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 89 

urge in the strongest terms that this permission to smoke be 
revoked. 

" Therefore, with the consent of the Honorable, the Secretary 
of the Navy, I have to forbid the further use of tobacco by the 
Naval Cadets, and to declare that the prohibition in relation to 
tobacco, contained in paragraph 169 of the Naval Academy Regula- 
tions, will be strictly enforced. 

(Signed) " C. R. P. Rodgers, Rear-Admiral, Suft." 

And not only at the Naval School has this salutary ac- 
tion been taken. " The recommendation of the Academic 
Board that paragraph 129, Regulations of the United 
States Military Academy of 1877, be expunged, and that 
the following be substituted for it : The use of tobacco in 
any form by Cadets is prohibited ; has been approved by 
the Secretary of War. General Order No. 6. June 11, 
188 1, Headquarters U. S. Military Academy." 

If youth be the flower of a nation, and if it be in the 
flower that we are to look for the promise of the future 
fruit, surely no wiser steps could have been taken than 
those indicated in the two orders just quoted — orders 
which, being enforced, will certainly increase the vigor even 
of the elect of our youth who constitute the membership 
of these two great national schools, and can hardly fail at 
the same time to confer on them the graces of an added 
refinement. 

Another point connected with the use of tobacco, the 
consideration of which no physician can, and no parent 
ought to overlook, is that of heredity — the question of 
the transmission of various traits, not only to the imme- 
diate descendants, but to those more remote. This 
question is so extensive, and involves such important 
considerations of family entailments and social and race 
deterioration or elevation, that we trust we shall be par- 



90 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

doned for dwelling upon it a little, the more especially as 
the records of our insane asylums point clearly to some 
cause for the rapid increase of brain and neurotic troubles. 
Should this cause prove to be the abuse, to say nothing of 
the use of tobacco, we may yet find that the germs of 
premature decay, thus widely spread over the land, are 
more dangerous than those other germs of whose deadly 
powers we have of late years heard not a little. 

It is a fact within the experience of every one, that a 
scar upon the body remains practically indelible through 
life ; that it can neither be washed out nor worn out ; that 
in spite of all the changes incident to growth and waste 
and repair, notwithstanding the continual flux of particles, 
it is constantly and accurately reproduced. A child is 
born, and meets, it may be in years of infancy, with some 
accidental injury which causes destruction of tissue and a 
consequent scar; that scar remains to mark the site of 
the injury through the whole existence of the individual, 
goes with him into his coffin, and remains to prove his 
physical identity until the body decays. But not one 
single particle, of all the many particles that went to make 
up the body of the child at the time the injury was 
received, was buried with the body of the man when at 
last he died. Something reproduced that scar, however, 
as the body grew, and as the system threw off particle 
after particle, day by day and hour by hour, until the 
renewal was completed, then only to be recommenced ; 
and that something which constituted the identity of the 
man was injured by the accident which produced the scar- 
ring. Here is a mysterious fact, but none the less 
incontrovertible, right before every one of us each day ; 
and what is true of the comparatively coarse outer 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 9 1 

integuments of skin and muscle, is also true of the mar- 
vellously delicate tissues that go to make up brain and 
nervous system. Our great psychologists seem tending 
toward the conclusion, which some at least among them 
have fully adopted, that the characteristics, mental and 
physical, which distinguish whole families, in some cases 
whole tribes and nations, are attributable to alterations of 
tissue, which partake very much of the nature of the altera- 
tion produced by an injury which we call a scar, and 
which, when affecting the delicate nervous and cerebral 
tissues, may be transmitted from one generation to another. 
"The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's 
teeth are set on edge." 

Men cannot live without acquiring habits; and these 
habits, which react on bodily conformation to a greater or 
less extent, do the same thing, it is highly probable, on 
the mind. Who can doubt, that has ever listened to an 
old man telling for the hundredth time some story of his 
younger days, that the habit of telling has induced some 
permanent effect on his brain-tissue — that the mind is 
moving, as it were, in a groove ? And who can doubt that 
habit, whether good or bad, acts upon every one much 
in the same way, producing grooves which are made deep 
and yet deeper by every repetition of the habitual action ; 
which, in its turn, is thus rendered more and more easy, 
until it at last becomes automatic, instinctive, practically 
a part of the organization of the individual, ready to be 
transmitted to his offspring, and through them, it may be 
in an intensified form, to distant generations ? 

Thus when the appetite for tobacco is fully established — ■ 
as it has been, in instances almost innumerable, when an 
individual has come so fully under its influence that to 



92 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

forego its indulgence is an impossibility — there can be little 
room for doubt that some change has been brought about 
in his organization, that may be, and very possibly often is, 
transmitted to his children. It would, perhaps, be too 
much to say that a child of the second generation will 
come into the world with an appetite for tobacco fully 
formed ; but it seems exceedingly probable that, with this 
or any similar habit firmly fixed in the father, a modifica- 
tion of the system has been brought about, which may be 
transmitted in a less decided degree to the child, for whom 
the formation of the habit or the acquisition of the appe- 
tite is thus rendered easier — in whom perhaps its devel- 
opment, at a comparatively early age, may be looked for 
with great confidence ; and it is evident that but a few 
repetitions of this process, in successive generations, are 
needed to produce a family or a tribe, or even a whole 
race, in whom the habit shall be innate, and shall appear 
among the earliest manifestations of liking or disliking. 
That this is not a mere theory — that, so far from such 
being the case, it is an established fact — is proven 
by the testimony of travellers in East India, and among 
those races of Central and South America, with whose 
ancestors the use of tobacco probably first originated ; and 
where we are told that children, yet unable to walk, are to 
be seen carried at the mother's back, papoose-fashion, or 
astride of her hip, puffing at a cigarette, identical in kind 
with that which the mother herself is enjoying, and seem- 
ingly finding it more of a necessity than many things 
which our own children reckon among the essentials of 
existence ! Do we desire to see any such state of things 
in our own country? It is not enough to say that such 
instances are to be met with only among barbarians ; we 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 93 

have only to keep our eyes open, as we walk the streets of 
any of our cities, to see that the tendency is toward that 
consummation ; if further evidence than that thus obtain- 
able is wanted, we have only to consult the records of the 
United States Navy, to learn that "the most prominent 
cause of rejection of candidates for apprenticeship is 
irritable heart, caused in most cases primarily by tobacco." 
Do such things look as though there were absolutely no 
danger? Do they not rather point to the conclusion that 
the tobacco-habit is making seriously rapid headway 
among us by means of heredity as at least one of, it 
may be, many causes. 

We are well aware that other views are taken than those 
that we have thus far expressed. We know that medical 
journals have lately claimed that the use of tobacco is 
upon the whole rather beneficial than otherwise ; that it is 
pleaded, in extenuation of the many heavy indictments 
drawn against it, that it produces no organic lesions which 
the scalpel of the post mortem examiner can detect ; that 
the damage produced is rather functional than structural ; 
that it works badly with only a minority of the many who 
use it ; and that, if it be once given up, all bad effects dis- 
appear, — if not immediately, certainly very soon after its 
discontinuance. We know, moreover, all that is claimed 
for it on the score of its wide-spread use, and on the 
ground of the testimony in its favor by the many who 
employ it ; but we note that all physiologists — with, so 
far as we know not a single exception — condemn its use 
by those who have not yet attained their growth. 

The late Professor Parke — himself, if we mistake not, a 

smoker — says : " I think we must decidedly admit injury 

> from excess ; from moderate use I can see no harm, 



94 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

except it may be in youth. " And this is the most favor- 
able utterance we have found ; for even in the periodical 
from which we take the above extract, we find, in close 
connection with Dr. Parke's utterance, the following : " If 
we are willing to accept the opinions which sanitarians in 
other nations have formed, we have a very decided one 
ready to our hand in Switzerland. That intelligent repub- 
lic enacted a law last year (1880) prohibiting the sale of 
tobacco to minors under fifteen years of age, and making 
it an offence against the law for such to smoke. Hence a 
boy of twelve or fourteen, who parades the streets of 
Geneva or Berne with a cigar in his mouth, is liable to be 
arrested and committed to the police-station ; and, as they 
have a disagreeable habit in that republic of enforcing the 
laws they enact, such would pretty certainly be the juve- 
nile smoker's fate. We recommend to our fellow-country- 
men their manner of dealing with the habit, which, 
whether harmless or not to most adults, is unquestionably 
of great injury to young boys." And another periodical, 
of equal prominence in medical science, says : " It is the 
duty of our public-school instructors to make the facts in 
regard to tobacco known and impressively felt by their 
scholars, and we hope that this field of sanitary mission- 
work will be actively occupied. Sewer-gas is bad enough, 
but a boy had better learn his Latin over a trap than get 
the habit of smoking cigarettes ; for we may lay it down 
as certain that tobacco is a bane to youth, though it may 
be the proper indulgence of manhood and a solace to old 
age." To both of which we think it may be added, that 
if the habit be not acquired in youth, there is no very 
great probability that it will be taken up by many in later 
life. If no tobacco is used except such as may prove " a 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 95 

proper indulgence to manhood and a solace to old age," 
the present enormous consumption will very soon be 
diminished greatly, and will in all probability never again 
be reached. 

As illustrating the effect of tobacco, even upon an 
individual habituated to its use, the following experiment, 
which may easily be repeated by any physician at almost 
any time, has interest. A young man aged twenty-four, of 
full habit and accustomed to smoking, was selected and 
kept perfectly quiet in a sitting position until his pulse 
was entirely regular at 75.5 per minute, a rate which it 
maintained steadily, thus indicating the freedom of the 
subject from all excitement. When this condition was 
reached he was given a pipe to smoke, all else remaining 
as before ; during the first five minutes of smoking, the 
only perceptible effect was an increased fulness and 
firmness of the pulse, the rate remaining as above ; in 
the course of the succeeding sixteen minutes the rate 
increased, being when noted, 87, 89, 95, 98, 103, 104, 
105, 105, 107, 108, in ; an increase of temperature was 
also noted, ending in perceptible perspiration. Smoking 
was now stopped, the individual still remaining quiescent ; 
the pulse continued to increase in frequency slightly for 
one minute longer, rising to 112, when it began to 
decline ; at the end of thirty minutes it was 89, and had 
not reached its normal rate of 75.5 at the end of two 
hours. It is hoped that others will repeat this simple 
experiment and record the results obtained ; it may be 
varied, moreover, in ways that will readily suggest them- 
selves to any intelligent observer ; and, being thus repeated 
and varied, an amount of information now wholly lacking 
can hardly fail to be obtained and rendered available for 
future use. 



g6 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS, 

An important point in connection with the tobacco- 
habit yet remains to be discussed, important as having a 
bearing upon immense pecuniary interests, i. e., its effect 
upon life-assurance. Every one who has ever made 
application for a policy of this kind must have observed 
that considerable stress is laid upon the physical condition 
and general health of parents and other relations. The 
reason for this is obvious : the applicant may not at the 
time of insurance have exhibited any failure of power ; but 
the examiner by his survey of the family- history, espe- 
cially that of the immediate progenitors, obtains the means 
of judging with tolerable accuracy his power of resisting 
strains, of combating with success any morbid influences 
to which he may be subjected. By means of auscultation, 
and other methods of examination, many points of the 
physical health can be determined with absolute certainty, 
but there are as yet no special tests by which the condition 
of the brain and nervous system can be ascertained ; 
hence the inquiries into parental conditions have an im- 
portance in this direction also. If now there be any 
truth in the ideas put forth in a previous portion of this 
paper, in regard to the possible inheritance of the tobacco- 
habit, the importance of the whole matter in relation to 
assurance will be readily apparent. Space does not admit 
of any further discussion on this subject ; it must suffice 
us if we have called the attention of insurers and insured 
to a point which we believe may yet assume vast im- 
portance in the consideration of their relations to each 
other. 

In conclusion, I have to call attention to the informa- 
tion contained in the pages which follow these — informa- 
tion worthy of the closest attention, whatever may be the 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 97 

opinion formed of my own work and views. The series 
of questions given was sent to nearly all the prominent 
medical men of Wisconsin, a very large majority of whom 
responded at considerable length; some who did not, 
being prevented, not by any lack of interest in the sub- 
ject, or by any failure to recognize its great importance, 
but by the want of time to answer as fully as seemed 
desirable. To all I offer sincere and hearty thanks, as 
now I bring my own personal work to a close. 

Mr. Sally, of St. Thomas Hospital, uses -the following 
language : " It is my business to point out all the various 
and insidious causes of general paralysis, and smoking is 
one of them ; I know of no single vice which does so 
much harm as smoking ; it is a snare and a delusion. I 
believe that cases of general paralysis are more frequent 
in England than they used to be, and I suspect that 
smoking tobacco is one of the causes of that increase ; of 
this being the case in America, there is no doubt." 

Dr. Williams Henderson, in his " Plain Law for Im- 
proved Health," speaking of insanity from the use of 
tobacco, refers to a gentleman who, from having been one 
of the most fearless and healthy of men, became one of 
the most timid. He became unable even to present a 
petition ; much less could he say a word concerning it, 
although he was a practised lawyer. He was afraid to be 
left alone at night. Though perfectly temperate in other 
respects he had used tobacco to excess. 

In the " Lancet " (January, 1857) Mr. Fennthus describes 
the result of his investigations : " On account of its 
softening and relaxing effect upon the mucous membrane 
of the bowels, tobacco is greatly resorted to in habitual 
constipation, but the susceptibility of the nervous system 

7 



98 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

is greatly depressed, and the vital force diminished by its 
use." 

In the preparation of this paper and its appendix, I 
have made use of material from the writings of Pereira, 
Prout, Bright, Radcliff, Orfield, Trousseau, Johnson, 
Brodie, Sizars, Jackson, Wells, Smith, Taylor, Budget, 
Rumbold, Richardson, Landon, Parker, — and it may be 
of others whose names are not given, though such 
omission is wholly unintentional. 

I have also to make acknowledgment of my indebted- 
ness to the following gentlemen for personal communica- 
tions and other effective assistance in various ways : Drs. 
W. Kempster, B. M. Gill, A. W. Bickford, H. H. Parrott, 
H. B. Cole, G. R. Taylor, L. G. Armstrong, E. L. Bev- 
erly, B. C. Brett, O. N. Murdock, E. Ellis, I. W. DeVoe, 
J. D. W. Heath, C. A. Rood, L. J. Smith, H. P. Wenzel, 
G. W. Jenkins, G. Seiler, L. Wade, R. Broughton, D. B. 
Wylie, G. W. Jones, J. T. Reeve, Clark, Day, Fenn, 
Goodwin, Jones, Vincent, Whitman, Prof. T. W. Chitten- 
den, and many others. 



CORRESPONDENCE ON TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

In order to obtain the freshest and most direct testi- 
mony with reference to the effects of tobacco, the 
questions which follow were addressed to about one 
hundred and fifty correspondents, the most of whom 
are prominent physicians of our own State. My space 
admits of the presentation of a condensation only of the 
information received in answer, and this condensation is 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 99 

compressed into the smallest possible limits. Were it 
possible, however, to print at full length all the communi- 
cations received, I doubt that any additional strength 
would be given to the case I have presented ; although 
the matter is full of interest and would be read with profit 
by very many, the general drift of the testimony given is 
all in one direction. 

Taking each question in its order, I have classified 
the answers received, giving at full length only such as 
have special interest, whether they are in accordance with 
the majority or not. From the nature of the case a 
simple yes or no in answer to many of the inquiries was 
not practicable or desirable. One reply often contained 
several distinct points, each having an importance of its 
own. 

Question 1. "What good effects from the continued 
use of tobacco have come under your observation ? " 

Answered substantially as follows : Eighty-five per cent 
reply that no good results have been observed from such 
use. One correspondent has observed a few cases of 
pyrosis which had been relieved by the use of tobacco, 
and has also seen the relief of constipation. One con- 
siders that it has given relief in certain dyspeptic troubles, 
producing, however, other disabilities equally bad. One 
says that tobacco has appeared to produce free expectora- 
tion in some instances. One knew of no good effects 
from the use of tobacco, except what he had heard 
others speak of. One claims to have been cured of 
chronic laryngitis by the use of tobacco. One has heard 
of a gentlemen who thought that smoking had relieved 
asthma. 

Question 2. "What, if any, adulterations of tobacco 



IOO TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

have come under your observation, and what have been 
the effects of such adulterations ? " 

Answered substantially as follows : Ninety-four per cent 
answer that they have not met with any adulteration. 
One has met with tobacco adulterated with copperas, to 
which attention was called by the effect produced on the 
mucous membrane of the mouth, and ulcers which it 
caused upon the tongue. 

Question 3. " In your opinion, is the use of intoxicat- 
ing liquors in any way fostered or affected by the habitual 
use of tobacco ? If so, please state how and why." 

Seventy- six per cent answer this question by an unqual- 
ified affirmative. Six per cent say no. Five per cent do 
not know, and the remainder give no answer. 

One correspondent makes answer that it depends upon 
the individual. Another says : " I have seen many cases 
where the use of tobacco in youth has led to the use of 
intoxicating liquors also." A third says : " In my opinion 
the use of tobacco fosters that of intoxicating drinks by 
reducing the powers of the nervous system ; liquor is then 
used as a restorative, and is about as active a one as I 
have found." A fourth replies : " I have considered the 
use of liquor as a necessary result of the use of tobacco, 
and have found no boys who use the first who did not 
begin with the second." 

" Experience demonstrates that those nations which are 
most addicted to the use of tobacco are also the most 
prone to drunkenness. This follows first, physiologically, 
by the fact that tobacco produces an atonic condition 
from which nature seeks relief; and second, psychologi- 
cally, because tobacco vitiates the mind and begets 
drunkenness, as one vice begets another." 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 10 1 

" My observation strengthens my belief that the con- 
stant use of tobacco creates and fosters a perverted taste 
for intoxicating liquors ; the social ties of a chronic 
tobacco-consumer exert a peculiar influence over him, so 
as more easily to dispose him to the use of intoxicants." 

"The narcotic properties of tobacco undermine the 
nervous system, and create what are called tobacco 
diseases ; and the almost universal testimony is that all 
topers, both young and old, first used tobacco freely. " 

" The effect of tobacco in many cases is to produce a 
depression of the heart's action, to overcome which a 
strong desire for stimulants is established. This can 
hardly be otherwise from the very nature of the case ; 
since the nicotine of tobacco has a direct tendency to the 
heart, affecting its action at once, and more or less in 
proportion to the extent to which tobacco is used." 

"I will not make the charge, sometimes made, that 
tobacco is a common stepping-stone to drinking, but all 
our inebriate asylums consider it useless to try to reform a 
patient so long as he is allowed to continue the use of 
tobacco." 

Question 4. <c In the treatment of any particular class 
of disease, or of wounds and injuries, have you met with 
any serious difficulty due to the habitual use of tobacco 
by the patient? If so, give details." 

The answers to this question may be classified as follows : 
Seventy per cent answer yes. Twenty-five per cent say 
no, and the remainder make no reply. 

" Inasmuch as the excessive use of tobacco interferes 
with nutrition and absorption, should we not expect a 
depressing effect upon the growth and repair of tissues ? 
And since tobacco is universally acknowledged as a debil- 



102 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

itating agent, we should not be likely to look for a rapid 
building up of injured tissues under its use. I have 
never had good results, and never expect to have them, 
in cases where tobacco has been applied directly to 
wounds, as is the foolish practice with many working- 
men ; in not a few cases in which extensive injuries have 
been done up with tobacco, and kept in that condition for 
a length of time, the process of repair has been much 
retarded." 

" In one instance I had a case in which a person had 
bitten his tongue while smoking a cigar; the wound 
seemed to be poisoned, and extensive inflammation and 
ulceration followed, with serious results." 

" I have seen instances where death has followed severe 
injuries, the patients having been habitual users of tobacco* 
in which I could attribute the fatal result to no other 
cause than the depression of the vital powers resulting 
from long use of the weed." 

" It is scarcely possible to comprehend the amount of 
harm the use of tobacco produces in some cases of 
venereal disease. I think it may safely be said that 
severe syphilitic or gonorrhoea! cases more frequently 
pass uncured than cured, if the patient continues the 
excessive use of tobacco." 

Question 5. " Have you observed any local effects of 
tobacco upon the mucous membrane of the nose, the 
throat, or the ear, which leads you to suspect that it acts 
as a predisposing cause of catarrh or other disease ? If 
so, give details." 

Sixty-eight per cent of the replies to this question are 
in the affirmative, thirty per cent in the negative. One 
" has cured several cases of catarrh by withdrawing the 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 103 

use of tobacco." Another regards " the constant use of 
tobacco as the source of a chronic inflammation of the 
throat and fauces, that can never be misunderstood by an 
experienced eye." 

" I have seen ulceration of the lips in those addicted to 
constant use of tobacco, which was traceable directly 
thereto ; in not a few cases catarrh was present, mani- 
fested by a nasal sound in talking, due to the thickening of 
the lining membrane of the nose and its appendages." 

" I have met with many cases of congestion of the 
pharyngeal mucous membrane, sometimes extending to 
the ear and sometimes to the larynx, producing hoarseness. 
It would seem that the pungent oil of the tobacco, volatil- 
ized by the heat, constitutes the exciting cause — at least 
I have always found such diseased condition difficult to 
reach except by requiring the unconditional surrender of 
its use ; usually thereafter treatment has been easy and 
successful." 

" I have observed that in some cases smoking has pro- 
duced eczema of the nasal mucous membrane, and chronic 
conjunctivitis. I have also seen irritable cough, and, in a 
few instances, violent heart-disturbance and gastric irrita- 
tion, all of which have disappeared upon stopping the use 
of tobacco." 

Question 6. " Have any cases of the following diseases 
come under your observation, which you believe to have 
been caused by the use of tobacco : (a) Ulceration of the 
lips ; (V) epithelical cancer of the lips or mouth ; (c) any 
local disease of the tongue, gums, tonsils, pharynx, &c. ? 
If so, give particulars." 

The replies to this question may be arranged as follows : 
(a) eighty-one per cent answer yes \ (£) fifty-nine per 



104 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

cent answer yes, twenty-five per cent say no, sixteen per 
cent give no answer ; (V) ninety-five per cent say yes. 

" I have seen two cases of epithelical cancer of the 
lips, one case of ulceration of the lips, one of ulceration of 
the tongue, and two cases of glossitis from the use of to- 
bacco. I know that it was the direct cause, for when its 
use was- discontinued, all the cases improved rapidly." 

" In one case, that of a lady who smoked a short pipe 
for a long time, the tongue became swollen to an alarming 
extent ; it was found that the pipe was the cause. I have 
also seen cancer of the lower lip in one long accustomed 
to the use of a pipe, the tumor requiring excision. " 

" Mr. smoked freely from the age of twelve. At 

the age of sixty-five he was obliged to have a cancer re- 
moved from the lower lip, due, in my judgment, to the 
use of tobacco. " 

" I have had a fair opportunity to notice these diseases 
as they have from time to time appeared in one form or 
another. I have treated several epithelical cancers which 
I have no doubt were the direct results of the long con- 
tinued use of tobacco, combined with the irritating effects 
of the pipe or cigar." 

" I have had two cases of epithelical cancer, supposed 
to have been the result of smoking, but I cannot give 
details.'" 

" I have had two cases of cancer of the lip, one caused 
by using a pipe which had been used for many years, and 
was saturated with the empyreumatic oil." 

i( I have seen one case of epithelioma of lip, from the 
use of an old pipe ; also a case of cancer of posterior por- 
tion of tongue in an incessant chewer; it proved fatal." 

" I have seen several cases of ulceration of the lips, and 



TOBACCO AXD ITS EFFECTS. 105 

twc of cancer of the lip, undoubtedly caused by use of 

"I have : ; erated upon three cases of cancer of the 
BpSj directly traceable to the use of a pipe."' 

u A young man aged thirty had smoked almost inces- 
santly for ten years ; at the expiration of the first year of 
this practice an ulcer developed upon the tongue near the 
center, which greatly annoyed him, but not suspecting 
that tobacc: had anything to do with it, he continued to 
smoke to excess. At last he was compelled to stop be- 
cause he could not put a pipe in his mouth without ex- 
quisite pain, and then he began to improve. I have no 
doubt that tobacco was the original cause of the whole 
difficult} : since abandoning it he has grown better 
steadily." 

Question 7. "Do your e: servation and experience en- 
ou :: enumerate any constitutional derangements 
resulting from the use of tobacco — e.g. dyspepsia, disease 
of the stomach, heart, Ike.? 91 

Ninety per cent ::" these questioned say yes; two per 
cent say nc ; and the rest make no reply. 

" I frequently meet with and treat cases of dyspepsia, 
nervous irritation, palpitation of the heart, nervous de- 
pression, and the like, which are traceable directly to the 
he use of tobacco. In all such cases, if the trouble 
be not too far advanced, recover}- is quite probable on the 
entire liscontinuance of the habit." 

'" I .tee. fully persuaded that nt: s of dyspepsia 

are produced by the use of tobacco. I have prescribed 
for such cases frequently, and find improvement only when 
the tobacco is discontinued." 

" I have treated a multitude of cases of disease of the 



106 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

heart and stomach, where I had the best of reason to sup- 
pose that tobacco was the main cause of the trouble, all 
bad effects disappearing when its use was discontinued. 
Dyspepsia in young men is caused, in many instances, and 
greatly aggravated in many more, simply by smoking to 
excess. " 

" I feel certain that abuse of tobacco, however employed, 
may be classed among the causes of chronic disease — e. g. 
severe forms of irritable dyspepsia, disturbed action of 
the heart, and the like. Young gentlemen who are in the 
habit of putting this enemy into their mouths do not be- 
come aware of the danger sometimes until too late." 

Question 8. " What is your opinion, founded on your 
own experience, as to the effects of tobacco in producing 
diseases of the brain and nervous system — e. g. conges- 
tion, apoplexy, epilepsy, paralysis, nervousness, impo- 
tence, &c. ? " 

Of the replies to this question, ninety per cent say that 
the writers believe tobacco to be the cause of such dis- 
eases in many instances. Six per cent give no answer. 

One thinks that he has met a few cases where such 
diseases could be traced to the effects of tobacco. 

" During thirty-six years of medical practice I have had 
unusual opportunity of seeing various forms of brain di- 
sease ; have treated epilepsy, paralysis, congestion, apo- 
plexy, nervousness and impotence, which I knew were 
traceable to the use of tobacco, from the fact that when 
the habit was given up the patients recovered. I have 
frequently met with persons suffering under one or another 
of these forms of disease, whom I knew to be smokers and 
chewers, and in whom I believed the result to be due to 
the tobacco-habit." 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. \OJ 

" I have treated two epileptic cases, and numerous 
cases of nervousness directly due to tobacco." 

" Under certain circumstances tobacco will help to pro- 
duce all the troubles enumerated, and will help to make 
them worse when they arise from other causes." 

" I have no doubt that the use of tobacco is worthy of 
the special attention of practitioners of medicine, as a very 
frequent but unconsidered cause of disease. I am very 
certain that if the doctor directs his attention to the sub- 
ject, he will find in the tobacco-habit an explanation of 
many obstinate and difficult cases. I do not doubt that 
the excessive use of tobacco aggravates phthisis ; I have 
seen cases of amaurosis that were unquestionably due to 
its use." 

"Amaurosis is a very common result of smoking to ex- 
cess, but I have never seen it produced by snuffing or 
chewing. So far as I have been successful in treating it at 
all, it has been by securing unconditional surrender of the 
use of tobacco." 

" Loss of memory takes place in an extraordinary degree 
in smokers." 

Question 9. "What is your opinion as to the possi- 
bility of a diseased condition of any kind being caused by 
tobacco and being transmitted by inheritance ? " 

The answers to this question were very diverse. Fif- 
teen per cent of our correspondents, however, think that 
a weakened and nervous state of the system caused by the 
excessive use of tobacco is frequently transmitted and 
manifested in the offspring. Twenty-five per cent reply 
that diseased conditions from the use of tobacco may be 
and doubtless often are transmitted from parents to chil- 
dren. Ten per cent admit the possibility of such trans- 



I08 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

mission, but deny that it is probable. Twenty per cent 
think that nothing of the sort is possible, while the re- 
mainder either answer very indefinitely or not at all. 

" I am acquainted with two brothers, both of whom 
have been inordinate lovers of tobacco from childhood, 
doubtless owing to transmission of the habit from both 
grandparents." 

" As the child is, as a rule, the reflex of the parents, 
both mentally and physically, he will partake more or less 
of the defects of their constitutions ; in other words, his 
constitution will contain the seeds, which in time will 
surely develop, of faults mental and physical." 

" I am firmly of opinion that tobacco, as well as alco- 
holic stimulants, creates diseased conditions, which will 
manifest themselves in the second generation." 

" I have noticed what I thought a transmitted tendency 
in the children of a few families, some of whom were 
lovers of tobacco from a very early age. These children, 
in one instance, were born after the father became an 
habitual user of tobacco, while their brothers and sisters, 
born before that time, had a perfect loathing for it. Such 
a fact seems to me very significant." 

GHiestion 10. " Have you observed whether or not 
the rapidly extending use of tobacco during recent years 
has been efficient in producing disease of any specific 
kind, especially in the nervous, respiratory, or digestive 
systems? " 

Forty-five per cent of the replies to this question were 
in the affirmative, twenty-five per cent in the negative, and 
the remainder, thirty per cent, of the correspondents made 
no response. 

" Tobacco is undoubtedly one chief cause of the rapid 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 109 

increase of dyspepsia, nervous debility, and all the long 
train of symptoms of nervous trouble so common among 
our business and professional men, and those who lead 
sedentary lives.' ' 

" I do not think that there is an article in use in this 
country whose legitimate effect upon the nervous system 
tends to induce deterioration more decidedly than does 
the effect of tobacco." 

" As our studies of the causes of disease acquire the 
defmiteness of science, and convictions of the laws and 
requirements of bodily health are forcing themselves upon 
us, the evils to the physical life of society, that result from 
whiskey and tobacco, become more and more apparent. 
I have little hesitation in attributing a very large propor- 
tion of some of the most painful maladies that come 
under my notice to the ordinary and daily use of tobacco 
in the quantity usually deemed moderate." 

" While there are differences in the medical estimate of 
tobacco, and differences, to some extent, in opinions as to 
the toleration of its use which can be established or 
endured by individuals, there is yet great uniformity of 
the opinion as to unadvisability of its use under any 
pretext whatever. No person or community need make 
the effort to use tobacco extensively in any form, without 
the expectation and assurance that the result will be 
continued injur) 7 to the individual, and enfeeblement to the 
race. I do not mean to say by this that one cigar or one 
pipe of tobacco will leave the partaker permanently 
impaired, any more than I would assert that the loss of 
one night's sleep is a permanent injury to a person in fair 
average health ; but it should be understood that the 
general line of direction is toward the impairment of 



IIO TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

vital force, and hence toward prostration and serious 
nervous disease. " 

" I think the majority of my office-patients are those 
whose systems have been shattered by the excessive use 
of tobacco ; the effects of this drug and its entailments 
are not sufficiently taught by the medical profession." 

(i Experience and observation alike show that the use of 
tobacco is producing a rapid increase in the amount of 
nervous and pulmonary diseases. Hence comes also a 
demand for whiskey to counteract the depression caused 
by tobacco, and from both we have broken-down constitu- 
tions and premature exhaustion in the offspring of their 
consumers." 

" I answer your questions generally, by saying that I 
believe that the use of tobacco tends to promote intem- 
perance, by causing profuse expectoration, and consequent 
exhaustion, which calls for stimulating liquors. During 
thirty years in which I used tobacco I laid the foundation 
for dyspepsia, diseased throat, catarrh, and general de- 
rangement of the nervous system, which now, after twenty 
years* abstinence, still maintain a hold upon my bodily, 
mental, and moral powers ; and though the effect is far less 
injurious than it would have been had I not reformed, I 
must regard the formation of the evil habit as one of the 
gravest sins of my life." 

"We are told that Nature never forgives sins committed 
against her by individuals ; that the record of offences 
against her is never effaced ; that the penalty is always 
exacted to the uttermost ; and I have never been more 
firmly convinced of these facts than when attempting to 
treat the long train of nervous and digestive troubles — 
traceable, directly or indirectly, to the use of tobacco in 



TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. in 

one form or another — that are continually coming before 
the physician for his attention. I do not suppose that a 
practising physician can be found who will not admit that 
if no tobacco in any form were used during ten years 
within the sphere of his observation and practice, a most 
noticeable change would take place in the character of 
the diseases presenting themselves for treatment." 

Question n. "What effects have you observed result- 
ing from the constant use of tobacco among professional 
men and students generally ?" 

Of those answering this question, twenty-five per cent 
said that they had noticed none ; fifty-five per cent made 
a great diversity of replies, some of which are given 
below, the tendency of all being in the same direction ; 
and from the rest no answer was received. 

" I believe that the habit of using tobacco, in various 
forms, is not only laying the foundation for many diseases 
of serious character, and not easily removed, but that it is 
damaging the moral fibre of many of our students. ,, 

"It is a rigorous rule of athletic regimen that the 
oarsman must put away his cigar and the pugilist his plug 
when they go into training. This is the smoker's frank 
confession that tobacco robs him of strength, that he is 
in better condition without it ; he cannot smoke when he 
would be at his best, when he would have every nerve and 
muscle at its steadiest. But is there ever a time when it 
is not worth while for a man to be at his best ? Success 
in the supreme endeavor of life would seem to be worth 
as much as success in a prize-ring or regatta, and by the 
same system of analogy it is evident that if the student 
would be at his best he must put away his cigar." 

"All our professional men should know that the ill 



112 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

effects of tobacco upon the system are less easily observed 
and more insidious than is usually supposed. I am sure 
that the habit is incompatible with great and long con- 
tinued intellectual activity; and since we physicians as a 
class know its harm physiologically, it appears to me that 
it is our duty to discourage a habit that is not conducive to 
health, and that we are criminal if we give countenance to 
a habit which is known to engender nervous troubles of a 
very serious kind. Professional men and students should 
be made more fully aware than they sometimes are of the 
tendency of the habit and its results." 

" During the last ten or fifteen years the consumption 
of tobacco has so increased, especially among young 
people, that we can hardly hope to comprehend its influ- 
ence. It is my belief that its use among the young 
cannot be too strongly condemned; very few students 
who make a free use of tobacco stand at the head of 
their classes." 

" It is not often that one great catastrophe overthrows 
the mental health of the student; it is the constant 
recurrence of unfavorable circumstances or acts, the 
gradual accumulation of adverse surroundings, the steady 
disregard of healthful conditions, which heap misfortune 
upon the individual ; the often repeated disregard of the 
common laws of hygiene, deviations from established 
principles, the thousand and one little things which tend 
to depress vitality and produce disease, — all these are the 
operating causes ; and prominent among them stands the 
increasing use of tobacco among the younger students at 
the present time." 

" Nervous prostration, and a strong tendency to the use 
of stimulants and narcotics, as alcohol and opium, are 






TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 113 

among the evils likely to overtake the student of tobacco- 
using habits. 5 ' 

" An unsound mind is ever the outcome of an unsound 
body, caused by a violation of law committed through 
ignorance, which was not accepted, however, as a reason 
for exemption from the penalty. What seems needful 
for the medical profession to teach at the present time 
is how best to maintain the mental faculties in a state of 
health. The insidious effects of the tobacco-habit should 
be pointed out and kept in mind if we would look to the 
welfare of the professional man and student, and to the wel- 
fare of society at large. The youth of our land should be 
taught that the use of tobacco arrests the growth and 
development of the body, producing low, dwarfish stature, 
pallid and sallow hue of the surface, insufficient and 
unhealthy supply of blood, and diminution of both bodily 
and mental power. Children should under no circum- 
stances be allowed to use tobacco in any form." 

Here I close my extracts from the abundant testimony 
given by our numerous correspondents. The following 
conclusions appear to be established as the judgment of 
the representative, thinking portion of the medical men of 
Wisconsin, a class including by far the larger part of the 
profession : 

1 st. That smoking, even in what is usually considered 
moderation, is, to say the least, injurious indirectly, most 
especially to the young ; inasmuch as it is notorious that 
the habits of drinking and smoking are very intimately 
associated, and that the practice of the latter may easily 
lead to the former — that the use of tobacco may become 
an inducement to the excessive use of intoxicating liquors, 
with all its accompanying evil results. 



114 TOBACCO AND ITS EFFECTS. 

2d. That beginning the use of tobacco in early life 
cannot be too strongly condemned, as producing most 
pernicious effects upon the constitution of the young, and 
as impairing greatly, if not wholly destroying, the chances 
of success as students and scholars. 

3d. That whatever may be said in favor of the use of 
tobacco in moderation, its employment in excess, es- 
pecially if long persisted in, is injurious to any one, 
physically, mentally, and morally. 



APPENDIX. 



I. 

TOBACCO IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

THE * Boston Journal " of November 18, 1882, stated that 
seventy-five per cent of the school boys, over 12 or 13 
years of age, were habitual smokers of cigarettes. This called 
out replies and provoked investigation, which resulted in de- 
veloping the following : 

Mr. Billings, of Cambridgeport, placed the age at from 8 
to 15. He had induced more than 300 out of 350 in his school, 
to sign a simple pledge to abstain during 1882. About fifty 
per cent had proved faithful. In the upper classes of the 
Latin School, one-half the pupils use tobacco. In the Eng- 
lish High School there is comparatively little smoking. 
East Boston placed the per cent of tobacco users at from 10 
to 30. 

Roxbury had been fighting the evil since 1866, but the num- 
ber of smokers had doubled. All these schools " prohibit " 
the use of tobacco, but indifference, and bad example on the 
part of the parents, render it impossible to control the boys. 

In New York and Brooklyn the evil has become so great 
that petitions are being circulated, asking for a law by the 
State to prohibit the sale of tobacco to minors. Such a law 
ought to exist and be enforced in every State. 



Il6 APPENDIX. 

II. 

TOBACCO VS. RELIGION. 

Mr. Samuel Smiles estimates that the sum expended every 
twelve months in the United Kingdom on cigars and tobacco 
exceeds eleven millions of pounds sterling. This sum is more 
than ten times as much as all the Missionary and Bible socie- 
ties raise in the same period. 

III. 

testimonies of physicians, scientists, and others. 

Dr. Boerhaave, of Germany, says that since the use of 
tobacco has been so general in Europe, the number of hypo- 
chondriacal and consumptive complaints has increased by its 
use. 

Liebig, the celebrated German chemist, says that u smok- 
ing cigars is prejudicial to health, as much gaseous carbon is 
injuriously inhaled, that robs the system of its oxygen." 

Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, says of tobacco, " It impairs 
appetite, produces dyspepsia, tremors, vertigo, headache, and 
epilepsy. It injures the voice, destroys the teeth, and imparts 
to the complexion a disagreeable dusky brown." 

Dr. Darwin, of England, says of tobacco, that " it produces 
diseases of the salivary glands and the pancreas, and injures 
the power of digestion by occasioning the person to spit off 
the saliva, which he ought to swallow." 

Dr. Franklin said that he never used tobacco, and that he 
never met with a man who did use it, that advised him to 
follow his example. 

John Ouincy Adams, former President of the United States, 
after using tobacco in early life, and giving up the habit, re- 
marked: " I have often wished that every individual of the 



APPENDIX. 



ll 7 



human race, affected with this artificial passion, would prevail 
upon himself to try, but for three months, the experiment 
which I have made, and am sure it would turn every acre of 
tobacco land into a wheat-field, and add five years to the 
average of human life." 

Dr. Woodward, former superintendent of the State Lunatic 
Asylum at Worcester, says : " Tobacco is a powerful narcotic 
agent, and its use is very deleterious to the nervous system, 
producing tremors, vertigo, faintness, palpitation of the'heart, 
and other serious diseases. That tobacco certainly produces 
insanity, I am not able positively to observe ; but that it 
produces a predisposition to it, I am fully confident." 

Dr. Amos Twitchell, of Keene, says, in a lecture on the 
habitual use of tobacco, that it produces its most pernicious 
effects by paralyzing the action of the nerves of involuntary 
motion, — those whose function it is to carry on the action 
of the lungs, heart, and stomach. The habitual use of to- 
bacco is a most fruitful source of disease. Among the 
diseases caused by tobacco the doctor enumerated palsy, — 
which he thought was produced by tobacco more frequently 
than by all other causes, — inveterate nervous headache, pal- 
pitation of the heart, disease of the liver, indigestion, ulcera- 
tion of the stomach, piles, and many others. 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



MESSES, EOEEETS BEOTHEES' PUBLICATIONS. 

JFamous axemen Series. 
GEORGE ELIOT. 

By MATHILDE BLIND. 

One vol. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 



u Messrs. Roberts Brothers begin a series of Biographies of Famous 
Women with a life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind. The idea of the 
series is an excellent one, and the reputation of its publishers is a guarantee 
for its adequate execution. This book contains about three hundred pages in 
open type, and not only collects and condenses the main facts that are known 
in regard to the history of George Eliot, but supplies other material from 
personal research. It is agreeably written, and with a good idea of propor- 
tion in a memoir of its size. The critical study of its subject's works, which 
is made in the order of their appearance, is particularly well done. In fact, 
good taste and good judgment pervade the memoir throughout." — Saturday 
Evening Gazette. 

" Miss Blind's little book is written with admirable good taste and judg- 
ment, and with notable self-restraint. It does not weary the reader with 
critical discursiveness, nor with attempts to search out high-flown meanings 
and recondite oracles in the plain 'yea' and ' nay ' of life. It is a graceful 
and unpretentious little biography, and tells all that need be told concerning 
one of the greatest writers of the time. It is a deeply interesting if not 
fascinating woman whom Miss Blind presents," says the New York 
Tribune. 

" Miss Blind's little biographical study of George Eliot is written with 
sympathy and good taste, and is very welcome. It gives us a graphic if not 
elaborate sketch of the personality and development of the great novelist, is 
particularly full and authentic concerning her earlier years, tells enough of 
the leading motives in her work to give the general reader a lucid idea of the 
true drift and purpose of her art, and analyzes carefully her various writings, 
with no attempt at profound criticism or fine waiting, but with appreciation, 
insight, and a clear grasp of those underlying psychological principles which 
are so closely interwoven in every production that came from her pen." — 
Traveller. 

" The lives of few great writers have attracted more curiosity and specula- 
tion than that of George Eliot. Had she only lived earlier in the century 
she might easily have become the centre of a mythos. As it is, many of the 
anecdotes commonly repeated about her are made up largely of fable. It is, 
therefore, well, before it is too late, to reduce the true story of her career to 
the lowest terms, and this service has been well done by the author of the 
present volume." — Philadelphia Press. 

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Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
FAMOUS WOMEN SEEIES. 



EMILY BRONTE. 

By A. MARY F. ROBINSON. 
One vol. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

" Miss Robinson has written a fascinating biography. . . . Emily Bronte is 
interesting, not because she wrote 'Wuthering Heights,' but'because of her 
brave, baffled, human life, so lonely, so full of pain, but with a great hope shining 
beyond all the darkness, and a passionate defiance in bearing more than the 
burdens that were laid upon her. The story of the three sisters is infinitely sad, 
but it is the ennobling sadness that belongs to large natures cramped and striving 
for freedom to heroic, almost desperate, work, with little or no result. The author 
of this intensely interesting, sympathetic, and eloquent biography, is a young lady 
and a poet, to whom a place is given in a recent anthology of living English poets, 
which is supposed to contain only the beat poems of the best writers." — Boston 
Daily A dvertiser. 

"Miss Robinson had many excellent qualifications for the task she has per- 
formed in this little volume, among which may be named, an enthusiastic interest 
*in her subject and a real sympathy with Emily Bronte's sad and heroic life. ' To 
represent her as she was,' says Miss Robinson, ' would be her noblest and most 
fitting monument.' . . . Emily Bronte here becomes well known to us and, in one 
sense, this should be praise enough for any biography.'' — New York Times. 

"The biographer who finds such material before him as the lives and characters 
of the Bronte family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Char- 
acters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so 
overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract 
all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that 
Miss Robinson has told their story not^ in prosaic language, but with a literary 
style exhibiting all the qualities essential to good biography, our readers will 
understand that this life of Emily Bronte is not only as interesting as a novel, but 
a great deal more interesting than most novels. As it presents most vividly a 
general picture of the family, there seems hardly a reason for giving it Emily's name 
alone, except perhaps for the masterly chapters on ■' Wuthering Heights,' which 
the reader will find a grateful condensation of the best in that powerful but some- 
what forbidding story. We know of no point in the Bronte history — their genius, 
their surroundings, their faults, their happiness, their misery, their love and friend- 
ships, their peculiarities, their power, their gentleness, their patience, their pride, 
— which Miss Robinson has not touched upon with conscientiousness and sym- 
pathy." — The Critic. 

" ' Emily Bronte ' is the second of the c Famous Women Series,' which Roberts 
Brothers, Boston, propose to publish, and of which ' George Eliot ' was the initial 
volume. Not the least remarkable of a very remarkable family, the personage 
whose life is here written, possesses a peculiar interest to all who are at all familiar 
with the sad and singular history of herself and her sister Charlotte. That the 
author, Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, has done her work with minute fidelity to 
facts as well as affectionate devotion to the subject of her sketch, is plainly to be 
seen all through the book." — Washington Post. 



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FAMOUS WOMEN SERIES. 



GEORGE SAND. 

By BERTHA THOMAS. 
One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 

" Miss Thomas has accomplished a difficult task with as much good sense as 
good feeling. She presents the main facts of George Sand's life, extenuating 
nothing, and setting naught down in malice, but wisely leaving her readers to 
form their own conclusions. Everybody knows that it was not such a life as the 
women of England and America are accustomed to live, and as the vyorst of men 
are glad to have them live. . . . Whatever may be said against it, its result on 
George Sand was not what it would have been upon an English or American 
woman of genius." — New York Mail and Express. 

" This is a volume of the ' Famous Women Series,' which was begun so well 
with George Eliot and Emily Bronte. The book is a review and critical analysis 
of George Sand's life and work, by no means a detailed biography. Amantine 
Lucile Aurore Dupin, the maiden, or Mme. Dudevant, the married woman, is 
forgotten in the renown of the pseudonym George Sand. 

" Altogether, George Sand, with all her excesses and defects, is a representative 
woman, one of the names of the nineteenth century. She was great among the 
greatest, the friend and compeer of the finest intellects, and Miss Thomas's essay 
will be a useful and agreeable introduction to a more extended study of her life 
and works." — Knickerbocker. 

" The biography of this famous woman, by Miss Thomas, is the only one in 
existence. Those who have awaited it with pleasurable anticipation, but with 
some trepidation as to the treatment of the erratic side of her character, cannot 
fail to be pleased with the skill by which it is done. It is the best production on 
George Sand that has yet been published. The author modestly refers to it as a 
sketch, which it undoubtedly is, but a sketch that gives a just and discriminating 
analysis of George Sand's life, tastes, occupations, and of the motives and impulses 
which prompted her unconventional actions, that were misunderstood by a narrow 
public. The difficulties encountered by the writer in describing this remarkable 
character are shown in the first line of the opening chapter, which says, ' In nam- 
ing George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a great genius.' 
That tells the whole story. Misconstruction, condemnation, and isolation are the 
penalties enforced upon the great leaders in the realm of advanced thought, by 
the bigoted people of their time. The thinkers soar beyond the common herd, 
whose soul-wings are not strong enough to fly aloft to clearer atmospheres, and 
consequently they censure or ridicule what they are powerless to reach. George 
Sand, even to a greater extent than her contemporary, George Eliot, was a victim 
to ignorant social prejudices, but even the conservative world was forced to recog- 
nize the matchless genius of these two extraordinary women, each widely different 
in her character and method of thought and writing. . . . She has told much that 
is good which has been untold, and just what will interest the reader, and no more, 
\n the same easy, entertaining style that characterizes all of these unpretentious 
fcographies." — Hartford Times. 



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FAMOUS WOMEN SEEIES. 



MARY LAMB. 

By ANNE GILCHRIST. 
One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 



il The story of Mary Lamb has long been familiar to the readers of Elia, but 
never in its entirety as in the monograph which Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has just 
contributed to the Famous Women Series. Darkly hinted at by Talfourd in his 
Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, it became better known as the years went on 
and that imperfect work was followed by fuller and franker biographies, — became 
so well known, in fact, that no one could recall the memory of Lamb without 
recalling at the same time the memory of his sister. " — New York Mail and Ex- 
press. 

" A biography of Mary Lamb must inevitably be also, almost more, a biogra- 
phy of Charles Lamb, so completely was the life of the sister encompassed by 
that of her brother ; and it must be allowed that Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has per- 
formed a difficult biographical task with taste and ability. . . . The reader is at 
least likely to lay down the book with the feeling that if Mary Lamb is not famous 
she certainly deserves to be, and that a debt of gratitude is due Mrs. Gilchrist for 
this well-considered record of her life." — Boston Courier. 

" Mary Lamb, who was the embodiment of everything that is tenderest in 
woman, combined with this a heroism which bore her on for a while through the 
terrors of insanity. Think of a highly intellectual woman struggling year after 
year with madness, triumphant over it for a season, and then at last succumbing to 
it. The saddest lines that ever were written are those descriptive of this brother and 
sister just before Mary, on some return of insanity, was to leave Charles Lamb. 
' On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them slowly pacing together a little 
foot-path in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, 
that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.' What pathos 
is there not here ? " — New York Times. 

" This life was worth writing, for all records of weakness conquered, of pain 
patiently borne, of success won from difficulty, of cheerfulness in sorrow and 
affliction, make the world better. Mrs. Gilchrist's biography is unaffected and 
simple. She has told the sweet and melancholy story with judicious sympathy, 
showing always the light shining through darkness." — Philadelphia Press, 



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MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' 



A collection of world-renowned works selected from the 
literatures of all nations, printed from new type in the best 
manner, and neatly and durably bound. Handy books, con- 
venient to hold, and an ornament to the library shelves. 

READY AND IN PREPARATION. 
Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," 
"Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake." The 
three poems in one volume. 

" There are no books for boys like these poems by Sir Walter 
Scott. Every boy likes them, if they are not put into his hands 
too late. They surpass everything for boy reading" — Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

Oliver Goldsmith's "The Vicar of Wakefield." 
With Illustrations by Mulready. 

Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." With Illustrations by 
Stothard. 

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's "Paul and Virginia." 
With Illustrations by Lalauze. 

Southey's "Life of Nelson." With Illustrations by 
Birket Foster. 

Voltaire's "Life of Charles the Twelfth." With 
Maps and Portraits. 

Maria Edgeworth's "Classic Tales." With a bio- 
graphical Sketch by Grace A. Oliver. 

Lord Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." With 
a Biographical Sketch and Illustrations. 

Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." With all of the origi- 
nal Illustrations in fac-simile. 

Classic Heroic Ballads. Edited by the Editor of 
"Quiet Hours." 

Classic Tales. By Anna Letitia Barbauld. With a 
Biographical Sketch by Grace A. Oliver. 

Classic Tales. By Ann and Jane Taylor. With a 
Biographical Sketch by Grace A. Oliver. 

AND OTHERS. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

BITS OF TALK 

ABOUT HOME MATTERS. 

By H. H. 

Author of " Verses," and "Bits of Travel." Square 
iSmo. Cloth, red edges. Price $1.00. 



"A New Gospel for Mothers. — We wish that every mother in 
the land would read ' Bits of Talk about Home Matters/ by H. H., and 
that they would read it thoughtfully. The latter suggestion is, however, 
wholly unnt cessary : the book seizes one's thoughts and sympathies, as 
only startling truths presented with direct earnestness can do. . . . The 
adoption of her sentiments would wholly change the atmosphere in muny 
a house to what it ought to be, and bring almost constant sunshine and 
bliss where now too often are storm and misery." — Lawrence (Kansas) 
Journal 

" In the little book entitled ' Bits of Talk,' by H. H , Messrs. Roberta 
Brothers have given to the world an uncommonly useful collection of 
essays, — useful certainly to all parents, and likely to do good to all chil- 
dren. Other people have doubtless held as correct views on the subjects 
treated here, though few have ever advanced them ; and none that we are 
iware have made them so attractive as they are made by H. H.'s crisp 
and sparkling style No one opening the book, even though without rea- 
son for special interest in its topics, could, after a glimpse at its pages, 
lay it down unread ; and its bright and witty scintillations will fix many a 
precept and establish many a fact. * Bits of Talk ' is a book that ought 
to have a place of honor in every household ; for it teaches, not only the 
true dignity of parentage, but of childhood. As we read it, we laugh and 
cry with the author, and acknowledge that, since the child is father of tha 
man, in being the champion of childhood, she is the champion of the 
whole coming race. Great is the rod, but H. H. ie not its prophet l ,, «— 
Mrs, Harriet Prescott Spqfford^ in Neiuburypori Herald* 



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Messrs. Roberts Brothers 9 Publications. 

Our New Crusade. 

A TEMPERANCE STORY. 

By E. E. Hale. 
Square i8mo. Price $1.00. 



From the Southern Churchman* 
u It has all the characteristics of its brilliant author, — unflagging entertain* 
ment, helpfulness, suggestive, practical hints, and a contagious vitality that sets 
one's blood tingling. Whoever has read * Ten Times One is Ten ' will know just 
what we mean. The fact that thirty thousand copies of this last-named volume 
have been sold gives one some idea of its hold on the popular mind. We predict 
that the new volume, as being a more charming story, will have quite as great a 
parish of readers. The gist of the book is to show how possible it is for the best 
spirits of a community, through wise organization, to form themselves into a lever 
by means of which the whole tone of the social status may be elevated, and tht 
good and highest happiness of the helpless many be attained through the sei? 
denying exertions of the powerful few." 

From the Louisville Daily Ledger, 
" Mr. Hale thinks, rightly, that this movement of the women of the land tn 
put down an undeniable evil was not a wisely directed one. He is willing enough 
to have a Crusade, but let it be more in the line of women's work, and let it ap- 
peal to all the best instincts of our nature, — not the resistant ones. Men are »iot 
going to be brow-beaten into being good, especially by the sex that has hitherto 
been styled the * gentler ;' and we don't much wonder at it. To come and for- 
cibly take possession of a man's place of business, and insist upon praying and 
"•inging him out of it, may have, at bottom, a very commendable motive to insti- 
gate it ; but there is a right and a wrong way of doing every thing. This is the 
wrong way. Now, in his * New Crusade,' Mr. Hale gives us the clew to a much 
better, more reasonable, and altogether more popular way of exalting the sodai 
Status in any given community." 

—4 

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the Publishers^ 

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Messrs. Roberts Brothers 3 Publication*. 

-■ ■ ■ »~— . 'i 'i i« 

IN HIS NAME. 

A Story of the Waldenses, Seven Hundred Years Ago* 

By E. E. HALE. 

Square i8mo. Price $i.oo. 

From the Liberal Christian* 

"One of the most helpful, pure, and thoroughly Christian books of which wo 
have any knowledge. It has the mark of no sect, creed, or denomination upon it, 
but the spirit pervading it is the Christly spirit. . . . We might well speak of the 
auinors great success in giving an air of quaintness to the style, befitting a story 
or life 'seven hundred years ago/ We do not know exactly what lends to it this 
flavor of antiquity, but the atmosphere is full of some subtle quality which removes 
the tale from our nineteenth century commonplace. In this respect, and in its 
dramatic vividness of action, ' In His Name,' perhaps, takes as high a rank as any 
cl Mr. Hale's literary work." 

From the N, Y* Commercial Advertiser. 
" A touching, almost a thrilling, tale is this by E. E. Hale, in its pathetic sim- 
plicity and its deep meaning. It is a story of the Waldenses in the days when 
Richard Coeur de Lion and his splendid following wended their way to the Cru- 
cides, and when the name of Christ inspired men who dwelt in palaces, and men 
vho sheltered themselves in the forests of France. 'In his Name' was the 
Open Sesame ' tc the hearts of such as these, and it is to illustrate the power of 
this almost magical phrase that the story is written. That it is charmingly writ- 
en, follows from its authorship. There is in fact no little book that we have seen 
of late that offers so much of so pleasant reading in such little space, and cot* 
vcys so apt and pertinent a lesson of pure religion." 

u T.ic very loveliest Christmas Story ever written. It has the ring of an old 
Troubadour in it." 

— ♦ 

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^Afc^VrEV 






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